Despite the fact that both Vince McMahon and Ari Emanuel publicly stated that it was Ari who made it clear that he wanted McMahon to stay with WWE following Endeavor’s acquisition of the company in order to merge it with the UFC to form the TKO Holdings Group, plans have changed.
As PWMania.com previously reported, McMahon is no longer involved in creative matters, with talent believing that Triple H has been “knighted” by Endeavor and will be driving 99.9% of the creative moving forward. Later, it was revealed that Triple H is in charge, with WWE sources stating unequivocally that McMahon is not involved creatively at the moment.
Last week, Emanuel spoke at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, where he blamed the TKO price drop on a variety of factors, including Saudi Arabia’s investment in the PFL, reports of NBCU pulling out of the running for Raw’s rights, and McMahon, who is still under federal investigation for the hush money scandal.
Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that Emanuel made the decision to keep McMahon away from the creative process.
Meltzer said, “Well, he’s out of creative. I mean, it’s a big story because Ari Emanuel, when they were on the verge of closing the deal, and had actually closed the deal in April, went around and did media rounds. ‘Vince will be in charge of the company, and if I and Vince have a disagreement, it goes the way Vince wants because Vince is the guy.’ So then the deal went through. It only really went through about a month ago, and already, Vince is out of creative because of Ari Emanuel. So this is a really interesting thing because it is the first time that….Vince is now in the position that his father was in ‘84 when his father had run the company for years and years and years, and he was just an employee of Vince Jr. Vincent Kennedy McMahon was the guy making all the decisions, and now, Vince was in fact overruled, even though when he merged the company he was told this would not happen. It did happen. It’s a really interesting thing and that statement when Ari Emanuel was talking about the reasons the stock is down, and he mentioned Vince’s name. It is very interesting. I think what is going to happen. But Vince’s power’s clearly marginalized. There’s no way around that.”
Bryan Alvarez responded, “So what was his argument to take Vince out of power?”
Meltzer added, “I don’t know what the argument was. He made the call. That’s all.”
Alvarez replied, “I had heard it was something to the effect of someone should when someone is hired, they should do their job. And, of course, since Hunter’s job is that he’s in charge of creative, he should do his job and not have somebody else overruling his job. So, I mean, it sounds good to me. I’m glad the guy’s out.
Meltzer stated, “Well, I mean, it’s going to be. I mean, it’s going to make more sense. It’s not going to be torn up. I mean, they still may tear some stuff up late, but it’s not going to be anywhere near the level that it had been for all those years. I mean, because it happened far less when Vince wasn’t around. Then, when Vince came back, it came back to happening. And it’s not happening. It’s not going to be happening to the same degree because it’s going to be [Paul[ Levesque’s vision and not compromised by Vince vision, which is often very different. So it’s going to be a Levesque product, which, you know, that’s a good thing. I mean, I think he’s done a great job in that role.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
