Fightful Select has shed some light on the rumors surrounding WWE seeking a potential sale including people in the company thinking Vince McMahon may be more involved in the product as of late.
According to the report, those within WWE have cited that they expect “business to pick up” post-WrestleMania 39 and several have stated that hosting WrestleMania in Los Angeles, CA right around the time of the possible sale alongside the media rights renegotiations has worked out well from a strategic business standpoint.
Sources at Comcast have suggested that even though the company has a long-standing relationship with Vince McMahon and WWE, they do not want to keep McMahon involved. A CNBC report had previously declared that NBCUniversal/Comcast is not currently part of the WWE sale process and they appear to be out of the running.
Several sources in potential bidders have expressed their wish for Stephanie McMahon to return, with a source at Disney saying, “these companies are doing their due diligence, they’re following the news cycles, regardless of their public levels of interest. They’re aware of the things that would make audiences and staff happy. She seemed to bring a lot of positive to the company.”
WWE’s progress under CEO Nick Khan has also been emphasized. It was a common sentiment that WWE has effective teams in its operations and that the company would be a major boost to whichever buyer’s streaming service is involved in the bidding war.
Furthermore, Vince McMahon has previously said that he would be interested in a sale that doesn’t involve him continuing with WWE, something that the report clarifies the billionaire has conveyed both to the higher-ups in WWE and people close to him on a personal level.
McMahon has also attempted to debunk rumors that he’s involved in creative, asserting to those close to him that he’s back on the WWE Board of Directors with the sole purpose of executing a sale or overseeing media rights negotiations.
Nearly every source connected with a potential buyer has agreed that the notion of McMahon staying involved would negatively affect the valuation of the sale, leverage, and value of the WWE brand moving forward.
Several WWE talents did note that there have been more late rewrites recently than there had been prior to McMahon’s return, and there have been “some strong indicators” of on-screen characters being adjusted in a way that McMahon had previously preferred which were either changed or eased off on when Triple H took over.
Talent has further stated that there has also been some vast creative that was set forth but then altered at the last minute. However, no talent has mentioned anything about McMahon being directly involved on a creative level outside of giving some advice.
The WWE creative team also insists that they have had no direct contact with McMahon, nor have they been informed about any changes that came from him. McMahon reportedly “stayed out of the way” when he was in the gorilla position at a recent RAW TV taping in Boston, MA.
WWE and McMahon are both aware that talent morale would go down significantly if he were publicly involved and moreover, there’s no “smoking gun” that he is involved.
The concerns from the WWE talent were said to be so openly discussed in WWE that they made their way to the AEW locker room as well.
