WWE Had Internal Doubt About Stephanie McMahon’s Abilities As An Executive

[Kemo]

Andrew Zarian, Dave Meltzer, Bryan Alvarez and Garrett Gonzalez talked about Stephanie McMahon taking a leave of absence during a special edition of “We’re Live Pal.” They discussed the various stories and rumors circulating about her decision to step away, at least for now. Zarian said that he had spoken with someone high up about Stephanie and that there was more to the story.

“[It was a] very bizarre conversation, I’ll tell you that. I didn’t expect that phone call. It was a phone call that kind of veered into a discussion about Steph. So I asked and I was like, ‘Hey, anything I could add to this? What’s going on?’ And, you know, some of the comments, I was shocked.

One being that people internally and this is coming from someone in the know in WWE. This wasn’t like a guy in catering,” Zarian said.

Zarian added, “The comment was that internally, there was doubt put on Steph [and] her abilities as an executive. And a lot of this started after she absorbed some of Michelle Wilson’s responsibilities after she left. One [responsibility] being ad sales and sponsorship. And the comment that I found interesting was that they mentioned that the investors were questioning why they weren’t performing as well. And internally, there was some questioning as to why that wasn’t performing.

I think a month ago, [WWE’s Head of Global Sales & Partnerships] Claudine Lilien…she went over to handle that and she was released a month ago and Nick [Khan] has taken over all these responsibilities. When the Shane issue happened at Royal Rumble, WWE was pretty quick to kind of say, yeah he got sent home for all the reasons that you heard, right? I was not expecting the words to be used for Steph because at the end of the day, the McMahons are the McMahons and they are the most protected people in that company.”

Meltzer jumped in and added that he spoke to someone who heard that there were efforts to keep the story behind Stephanie’s absence out of the press. Meltzer said that this is a case of miscommunication because Zarian’s source wanted the story to get out.

Meltzer stated, “As far as Steph goes, like, if and when she comes back, and it won’t be soon, there’s a real good chance it won’t be in the same position… But it was interesting, because I talked to somebody about something similar and asked about Stephanie in that in that realm, and you know, certain things were explained that…there’s people who Stephanie dealt with that, but because Vince always had to answer, you know, she didn’t have the power. Nobody does. Vince has all the power. She’s someone who talks to Vince but at the end of the day, Vince is going to make those decisions.

But the thing was, there’s some people who are saying stuff and a person told me – he’s like, ‘if anyone hears that, they’re gonna be gone. No one can say anything bad publicly about Steph.’ And it’s like like a left hand and a right hand thing. Yeah. You (Zarian) were told, in a way, because they wanted it out.”

Zarian said that the source used “buzzy” words with him and those were terms that they wanted him to use when leaking the story. Zarian pointed out how Nick Khan has now become a senior executive in WWE because of how many office people have been let go.

Zarian began to speculate on the reason that his source would’ve wanted to get the story out with the buzzwords they used.

Zarian said, “So you could see that this is a big change. But now the big story is okay, so why would that comment be made? There’s a reason for it. You know, you can speculate all you want. Is it to disconnect the McMahons from the company a little bit so if there is a sale positioning, it’s easier on the audience, maybe? … Or it can easily be, you know, get the stories out there to make it easier to change that old guard in our company. I was really surprised, and I hear some wacky things from there from people like crazy, crazy things. I was really shocked to hear that this conversation would happen.”

[LionDen]

Very interesting inside info.