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VINCE MCMAHON FIRMLY BACK IN CHARGE AT LAST NIGHT'S RAW
By
Mike Johnson on 2023-04-04 01:09:00
Vince McMahon was personally and heavily involved with last night's episode of Monday Night Raw, PWInsider.com has confirmed with multiple sources.
PWInsider.com is told that about 15-20 minutes before Raw went live on the air, a number of late rewrites for the episode were ordered, described as not "feeling" like the type of changes talents and staff had come to expect under Paul Levesque. Changes for the episode continued as the show well into being on the air and we are told they came directly from McMahon, who had his own office at Raw, just as he did before his "retirement" in the summer of 2022.
While McMahon stated he would not be "in the weeds" of creative on CNBC yesterday, we were told by multiple sources who were at Raw that there was no doubt that Vince was firmly back in charge following the Endeavor acquisition of the company.
PWInsider.com is told the night started with Paul Levesque on headsets running Raw, but as the taping went on, it was McMahon who was more and more involved as the point person running the show. While McMahon was on headset producing a few times over Wrestlemania 39 weekend, he was at the gorilla position for most of last night's Raw taping, directly overseeing the proceedings.
Among some talents we spoke with, there was a huge negative shift in morale as they realized that things were going to go back to "exactly where they were" before Paul Levesque was placed in control as Chief Content Officer. One source said the "place felt nuked" but others didn't go that far. The feeling was that going forward, the likelihood was that McMahon would be overseeing everything again, leaving the creative once again to his whims and sensibilities, although whether that actually plays out remains to be seen.
A big part of that feeling of resignation was that Levesque is genuinely liked and trusted by the talents, especially since so many came through the WWE NXT system, and for some of them, that feeling of security many had felt in the run from Summerslam to Wrestlemania was no longer a given - and would be far departure from how some we spoke to felt tonight.
Other talents more or less shrugged it off, feeling they always suspected "all roads" would lead to McMahon being back in the central creative role eventually, but wanted to see if this would be a regular thing or whether it just happened last night because McMahon was at TV due to being in Los Angeles for Wrestlemania and the acquisition announcement.
One person joked WWE was always McMahon's world and now it's back in the palm of his hand after he willingly gave it up last summer.
More as we confirm.
