In this WrestleTalk News, the backstage reaction to Vince McMahon wanting to return to WWE,
a major NXT Championship changed hands last night, Raw draws a terrible rating and more.
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2022 has been quite an insane year of wrestling news.
Steve Austin wrestled one the main events of WrestleMania, Vince McMahon fired his own
son because he acted like a child around his booking in the Royal Rumble, one of the founders
of All Elite Wrestling left the company and signed for the competition, and that was only
the first few months.
Since then we’ve had Brawl Out, various other fights and incidents backstage in AEW,
William Regal both signing and leaving All Elite Wrestling, Sasha Banks and Naomi walking
out on an episode of Raw while being tag team champions and more - but perhaps the biggest
of all, Vince McMahon retiring from the sport of professional wrestling.
McMahon’s issues first began back in June when the Wall Street Journal released an article
that alleged Vince had paid $3 million in hush money to cover up an affair with a former
employee, which prompted an internal investigation that showed there were other non-disclosure
agreements paid out totalling $12 million.
He stepped down as CEO, placing his daughter Stephanie McMahon - who herself was trying
to leave the company just a few weeks prior - to replace him as the interim-CEO.
He remained in control of creative of both Raw and SmackDown, however, until a follow-up
article from the Wall Street Journal just a couple of weeks later prompted McMahon to
officially resign; placing Stepahanie and Nick Khan as Co-CEOs, and his son-in-law Triple
H took over as the Head of Creative.
The articles also involved Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis, who was fired
from the company in late June.
WWE told investors in November that the investigation into the alleged misconduct by Vince was now
complete and the committee had been disbanded.
Things massively changed in WWE, and very quickly.
The company brought back many wrestlers that had been fired or released, including notable
names that had clashed with McMahon creatively like Bray Wyatt.
Yesterday on December 13th, The Wall Street Journal released a new piece on McMahon - just
hours before Vice’s 9 Lives of Vince McMahon documentary aired - which detailed two sexual
assault cases against Vince.
The first was from Rita Chatterton, a well-documented referee from the 1980s who claimed Vince sexually
assaulted her in a limo in 1986.
The second is a new claim from a spa owner, who alleges McMahon sexually assaulted her
in 2011.
McMahon has denied both of the allegations, and - according to the Wall Street Journal
- “has told people he refuses to pay settlements to Ms. Chatterton and the former spa manager”.
But that’s not the only thing he’s been telling people, as also within the story was
this quote: “Mr. McMahon also has told people that he
intends to make a comeback at WWE, according to the people familiar with his comments.
He has said that he received bad advice from people close to him to step down and that
he now believes the allegations and investigations would have blown over had he stayed.”
Just 145 days since he retired, Vince McMahon wants to return to WWE and take back control.
Anecdotally speaking, we’ve seen much more praise in our comments here on WrestleTalk
and on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel for WWE’s product since Triple H took over creatuve.
Which might be why the news that Vince McMahon wants to return to WWE didn’t go down that
well with our audience when we posted a video about it yesterday.
And it would appear that our audience isn’t the only group of people with this reaction,
as WWE are reportedly not rolling out a red carpet for a Vince McMahon return confirmed.
After the Wall Street Journal article was posted, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful tweeted:
“Numerous WWE higher ups that I've spoken to in recent months have indicated to us they
want nothing to do with [Vince McMahon returning] and are happy with the direction.
I haven't heard one person there itching for a Vince return.”
PWInsider echoed these sentiments, with Mike Johnson reporting, “I spoke to at least
a dozen people who work for WWE and not a single one of them wants to see McMahon come
back.
In fact, every one of them feels just the opposite.”
Johnson adds that, under Vince, the backstage dynamic in WWE was “a tense workplace”
and “people are happier and enjoy going to work” under the new regime.
In an interesting ending to the report, he writes, “You can't show people a better
way and then take it from them.
If they have other options, they will pursue them.”
Fightful Select also spoke with people backstage within WWE following the latest Wall Street
Journal article, with one source calling the news, “exhausting”.
Another source told Fightful that morale within WWE has grown tenfold since McMahon left.
Andother - while not saying that a return would be concerning - did note that things
have strengthened since McMahon departed the company.
Another said, “It would be a really selfish move for Vince to come back under any circumstances.
The reason he left, how business has done since then — it’d be really selfish.”
Sean Ross Sapp adds, “the rarely unanimous reaction was that McMahon was not wanted back.”
The source who said it would be ‘selfish’ for McMahon to return also pointed out that
business - contrary to what the belief always was - didn’t collapse when Vince left.
The stock prices have increased, morale has increased, house shows have increased, live
events have increased and ratings have increased - though this week is an anomaly for that
statement which we’ll get into later.
Mike Johnson of PWInsider even noted that the stock price dropped yesterday by over
2%, which he writes, “In my opinion, it was down due to the part of the story that
stated Vince McMahon is considering a return to the company.
The stock rallied sharply after he left the company so it would stand to reason that it
would drop if he returned.”
Johnson also adds that Wall Street - the finance place not the journal - were “happy WWE
distanced themselves” from Vince and that it would “make no sense that they would
welcome him back” following two more accusations and legal demands.
He adds, “WWE may be forced to make a statement if the stock price drops further.”
Not only that, but he writes that both NBCUniversal and Fox might not want to deal with McMahon
either.
He writes, “Will they want to be in business with him, especially with the fear of other
women coming forward hanging over their heads.”
But the question becomes - can Vince come back?
Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live noted that it wouldn’t quite be as simple as walking
back into the office on Monday and announcing he has returned.
But Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics noted on Twitter, “Vince McMahon still has majority
voting control of WWE, thanks to preferred class family stock.
His resignation only required him to forfeit a small number of shares that were part of
his compensation and hadn't vested.”
He added in another tweet, “Vince McMahon reportedly wanting to come back to $WWE makes
a company sale less likely for now, since as controlling shareholder, he'd have to approve.
He obviously wouldn't want to relinquish the control he'd need to return.”
Thurston also speculates that Vince “could install a new board” to get what he wants,
even if it would come at a great cost to its media value and partnerships.
On the subject of of The Board, Alvarez noted on Wrestling Observer Radio, “The reason
he ‘voluntarily’ stepped down was that if he hadn’t voluntarily stepped down, it
was going to be done in a different manner.”
He added, “I’m not saying he’s never going to be back, I’m not saying it’s
not possible.
He can have all the intentions he wants, [but] there’s a lot that would have to happen
for him to just come back.”
Do you think Vince will come back, and if he does, what happens next?
Let me know in the comments down below.
While this will likely have no bearings on the story we just covered, this week’s Raw
didn’t do all that well in the ratings.
This week’s Raw was dominated by two number one contendership matches, with Bayley and
Alexa Bliss facing off the position to face Bianca Belair for the Raw Women’s Championship,
while Seth Rollins battled Bobby Lashley to face Austin Theory for the US title.
However, the show tied its worst-ever rating on USA Network with 1.47 million viewers.
The other lowest-rated episode aired on July 5th, 2021 - which was obviously affected by
July 4th celebrations.
This week’s episode also drew its third lowest 18-49 demo rating with a 0.37.
The usual culprit for bad Raw ratings is Monday Night Football, but that also drew lower than
usual ratings.
Bizarrely, the ratings pattern didn’t follow the usual structure either - which is usually
the show peaks in hour one, declines slightly in hour two, then drops massively in hour
three.
But for this week’s episode, hour one drew 1.48 million while hour two grew to 1.55 million,
then fell to 1.39 million for the third hour - meaning both of the top contender matches
were the least drawing things on the show.
The third hour was above last week’s record low, though, which means people were drawn
towards Lashley vs. Rollins in some capacity.
Raw is down 6% year on year, but that’s only really about 1% when you factor in percentages
of the homes the show is in and cord cutting.
Hopefully NXT won’t suffer similar drops, as they had a major title change on last night’s
show.
After winning the remarkably great Iron Survivor Challenge over the weekend, Roxanne Perez
- the former Rok-C in ROH - was the person to end Mandy Rose’s 413 day reign as NXT
Women’s Champion as she pinned the champ to win the title.
The match was originally supposed to take place on January 10th, but was moved forward
to last night’s episode.
Grayson Waller will have his NXT Championship match after winning his Iron Survivor Challenge
on that January 10th episode.
Speaking of NXT and its been speculated since Nikki Cross returned to her old gimmick and
ditched the superhero stuff that we could see a return of her old faction Sanity - especially
as Triple H is bringing back a lot of his favourite NXT acts that were released under
Vince.
This speculation was furthered when Eric Young finished up with Impact recently, with the
news his contract ends with them at the end of 2022.
And now Cross herself has fuelled that speculation fire, posting an Instagram Story that suggests
the group is returning.
The dates posted in the drawing are April 21st, 1989 - which is Nikki’s birthday - November
21st, 2018 - which was when she faced Candice LaRea in NXT - and October 12th, 2016 - which
was the debut of Sanity in NXT.
The image also features the logo used for Sanity back in the day.
Cross has been spotted during Raw in backstage segments stalking Candice, which could suggest
that Sanity will come in to feud with The Garganos.
Avatar: The Way of Water opens this weekend, and Laurie Blake and Dan Layton break the
movie down in our latest episode of What’s On At Cineworld Cinemas - filmed on location
inside of a Cineworld Cinema.
Check it out!