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Your thoughts on Vince McMahon “retiring”?
Obviously, this is a HUGE topic to cover, so big that Mike Eps and I spend two hours on it yesterday while Mike Johnson did an hour solo hotline on it. I highly recommend you check out those audios. If you aren’t an Elite member, I feel it’s worth purchasing a one month subscription just to listen to the in-depth analysis. You can do so by clicking here.
What I will do here today is post the rough outline that I did for yesterday’s shows, with some thoughts on each topic. Let me repeat, these are my takes, not necessarily factual statements.
The Why:
He didn’t retire on his own. He recently said he would work until he died, or words to that effect. There is no way he wanted to leave so that means he knows there are probably more scandals to come. The investigation isn’t over and Vince knows what he has done so somehow, some way someone made him realize his only play was to leave now on his “own terms” rather than be forced out in disgrace later.
Plus, outlets aren’t going to let this drop, especially give the way Vince made it clear that he still controlled the voting stock. That means, to them, he is still associated with WWE. Outlets will keep digging and Vince knows if there is more to find. Plus, there may be people that step forward that didn’t get signed to an NDA, or that are looking to get one now.
The Who
We may never know who turned him in but it was someone, for sure. There is at least one person out there who alerted the board to the first NDA. Who was it? I don’t know but I sure wish I did. Whoever it was, I honestly believe they did the right thing. While a lot of us are happy to see the booking process finally get out from under his draconian reign, what is more important is that a CEO who was forced to pay off women that he had trysts with is out of the company. That kind of culture is unacceptable and he should not be in charge. Period.
The Past
You have to give Vince credit where it’s due in telling his story, while also calling him out on his behavior and not promoting the fallacy that everything that he touched turned to gold. Is he a legend in the business, and in business period? Yes. Did he hang from the proverbial cliff by his last fingernail a few times? Absolutely. In the end, he made more good calls than bad but there were times when WWE could have blown up as well. He was just able to weather them.
The Future
The caveat here is that Vince will really stay away and keep his hands off of creative completely. If so, I think Stephanie McMahon, Nick Khan and Paul Levesque know how to do the job and take the company where it needs to go. My guess is that as co CEOs, Nick will focus more on the business end (like Linda McMahon used to do) and Steph will focus on the product. That is a winning combination to me.
I expect the creative process will improve significantly, but don’t expect it to happen overnight. And, it shouldn’t. Doing a “reset” would be the wrong way to go, for a few reasons. Taking measured steps to improve the character development and storytelling is the way to go. I expect it to be a situation where three months or so from now, it dawns on us how different the product is compared to what it was.
I don’t see Bruce Prichard being let go immediately either. I think he will be given a chance to show that he can produce a good show. He has given Vince what he wanted (unfortunately). I think he will get the chance to do the same with the new regime. Will he be able to do it? We shall see.
As for Johnny Ace, he should be terminated sooner rather than later. Now that Vince is gone, there is no worry of it appearing to indict Vince if Ace is let go. And not for nothing, he has done a terrible job anyway. Time to hit the road John.
It will be interesting to see how the stock market reacts. They weren’t at all upset after hours on Friday. The fear had always been what would happen to the stock if Vince died. Now with the scandals, the market may actually be happy that he is gone instead. As I have said many times, it’s fair to believe that big companies would shy away from doing business with WWE as long as Vince was in charge.
At the end of the day, I think WWE is much better shape now than it was Friday morning. That is a great thing for them, and very well may end up being a bad thing for Tony Khan and AEW. Time will tell.
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