In this WrestleTalk News, Stephanie McMahon is taking a leave of absence from WWE, could
WWE freeze Naomi and Sasha Banks’ contracts and is Rock vs Roman Reigns ‘just fantasy’
as one WWE star put it.
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In quite shocking out of the blue news it was Stephanie McMahon yesterday announced
that she would be taking a leave of absence from WWE, effective essentially immediately.
That’s crazy.
She took to Twitter to break the news saying: “As of tomorrow, I am taking a leave of
absence from the majority of my responsibilities at WWE.
WWE is a lifelong legacy for me and I look forward to returning to the company that I
love after taking this time to focus on my family.”
So Shane’s gone, Stephanie’s gone, that’s two horcruxes guys.
Just got to find 5 more - one is definitely a black vest.
PW Insider followed up saying that their amongst their sources the word making the rounds is
that McMahon will definitely be returning to the company at some point but no timetable
for that has been laid out yet, though it is expected that someone else will be handling
her current duties until she returns.
In her role as Chief Brand Officer McMahon works to advance the company’s brand reputation
amongst advertisers, media, business partners and investors, oversees its community relations
and pop culture strategies and became one of its leading ambassadors.
And obviously invented Women’s Wrestling.
According to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics that someone taking over is Nick Khan - they
tweeted: “Nick Khan will be taking over most of Stephanie McMahon’s duties in her
absence, according to multiple people at WWE, Select business partners have already been
informed.”
Oh good, that’s like almost beating Voldemort and making Darth Vader more powerful.
Steph’s decision to step away from the company for a while came as quite the shock on Twitter,
but as with most things in WWE was also a shock for a lot of the people working there.
Brandon Thurston said that: “WWE employees I've heard from found out about Stephanie's
leave of absence when she tweeted it.”
With PW Insider noting that many people in WWE were “shocked and taken aback” by
the news and said that only her “most inner circle” were aware of the decision.
But obviously didn’t stop WWE stars of now, then and recently released from showing her
love on social media: Alexa Bliss tweeted “ we love you @StephMcMahon”
Johnny Gargano said “you’re the best, Steph!
Enjoy time with your family” And Dana Brooke thanked her for being a “role
model for all women around the world”.
Fightful added to the surprise nature of the announcement that “rumblings” had been
heard that suggested McMahon was less involved in WWE as of late, the one rep contacted said
that Steph was “still part of the WWE family” and others shot down rumors that she had been
pushed out of the company.
Omg is Vader also breaking horcruxes?!
While McMahon is “still part of the WWE family”, which is a funny way to say she
is named after the boss, this moment right now is probably the weakest grip the McMahon
extended family has had on WWE ever - Shane’s out, Triple H’s influence on the onscreen
product has been completely disrupted, Stephanie is taking time away.
It’s all very Succession.
To get some further scoops on the Stephanie situation David Bixenspan turned to the darkside:
he went on LinkedIn, at least they’ve got one user still in 2022.
Two actually because he noticed that Stephanie had updated her LinkedIn profile to remove
references to WWE.
He tweeted: “From the "could mean nothing, could mean
something" file: Though she's left up the WWE references in her bio and her background
image, Stephanie McMahon's LinkedIn page no longer includes her WWE work history, just
her education history and volunteer work history.”
When asked if he was sure it had that info before he said he’d used it to check timing
on her different job titles within the company.
Obviously this could be nothing, it’s LinkedIn it’s not that deep, maybe it’s a glitch,
maybe someone in Steph’s team accidentally deleted it, but it is also LinkedIn, I haven’t
updated mine in like 7 years, and if I suddenly logged in to delete a bunch of my work history
from the thing that documents my work history it might raise a few eyebrows.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens between Stephanie and WWE, and whether the
company give a timeline on her return any time soon.
Sticking with WWE, Stephanie is not the only one walking out of it this week - she’s
probably the only one who got the company’s blessing to do so though.
As you surely definitely know by now Sasha Banks and Naomi reportedly walked out of Monday’s
WWE Raw taping after supposedly becoming frustrated with their booking and aimless direction of
the women’s tag team division - thank you Stephanie for inventing it.
While conflicting word has come down the grapevine that Banks lead the charge on the walkout,
Naomi was just an innocent pawn in it all to Naomi is using it for leverage on a contract
that is coming up it’s all a mess of he said she said.
Dave Meltzer updated on Wrestling Observer Radio to say what he thinks WWE’s response
will likely be, claiming he doesn’t think that the company would fire Banks or Naomi
over the incident, mostly because they don’t want either star to go to AEW, meaning they
are much more likely to freeze Sasha and Naomi’s contracts while they refuse to perform.
Vader busting out the carbonite again.
Lot of Star Trek references in this episode.
This sort of weird contract purgatory WWE likes to keep people in is just kind of gross,
if people want to go let them go, if they want to stay make it worthwhile them staying,
I feel like it’s not hard.
Obviously as with news of this type people take sides: a lot have sided with Banks and
Naomi for standing up for themselves while others have sided with the company calling
it ‘diva’ behavior to walk out.
Mickie James had a more reasoned take when she appeared on Busted Open Radio to talk
about it:.
She said that this wouldn;’t stop other companies working with Sasha and Naomi as
they can see the value in them as stars and merchandise movers with a clear love and passion
for the business: “That’s probably more about what this
is, unpacking it all, if they were pouring their love into something and feeling like
it wasn’t valued.
That’s very frustrating.
We can all understand being frustrated at time.
I’m sure we’ve all had our gripes.
You think it’s the power of social media, but WWE is the one that pulled the trigger
on letting the cat out of the bag.
People are only hearing that one side of it.”
She closed by saying: “That’s another reason why I applaud them
for standing up for themselves.
It is a big statement and it’s unfortunate that they felt the need to get to that level
and it’s unfortunate that you don’t hear people standing up for themselves and it gets
to that point that it gets to.””
AEW star Toni Storm popped up on the AEW Unrestricted podcast to talk about her start in the company
and touched on some of her final moments in WWE.
She said that after leaving the E she suffered incredible burnout and considered quitting
wrestling all together: “There was moments like at first definitely
like ‘oh this is shockingly terrible I’m going to leave forever, this is me done.’
Like it didn’t last long, I quit, left, sat on it for a while, you know you get that
wrestling itch.
I really thought I was dead, I remember I was done.”
And perhaps some of that burnout comes from pure exasperation from some of the angles
pitched to her by WWE, including the pie in the face moment between herself and Charlotte
Flair, which Storm said actually turned out better than the original pitch:
"The original idea was like, I was called up and asked if I was comfortable having my
shirt ripped off or something.
They wanted to do this whole angle where they wanted to rip my shirt off to be embarrassed,
in my underwear, I guess.
When you're asked if you're comfortable to do that and literally, people are being fired
every single week, it's like, 'Well, yeah, I guess I'm comfortable with that.'
Then, a lot of people fought to not have that happen."
Which is just bleak and dark, and exploitative of the vulnerable position that these independent
contractors are in with this company.
The looming threat of not having a job leaves people agreeing to stuff they don’t want
to do and ultimately they’re not comfortable with because they don’t have basic protections.
Madness.
While everything else in WWE is shifting uncontrollably one constant in the turmoil is Roman Reigns
as Universal Champion, undisputed no less, standing stoic like a rock against the tides
of the sea of change.
Well aside form the whole new schedule thing - but that wouldn;’t have let me say stoic
like a rock against the sea of change - like a ROCK.
Because the plan floating in the ether that we’ve been banging on about for years now
is that WWE has had Roman hold the gold for nigh in two years because they want a match
with the Rock at WrestleMania.
The thinking being that Dwayne Johnson’s Hollywood schedule and insurance generally
is making that difficult - an injury suffered in the ring has a huge knock on effect for
shooting.
Sportskeeda’s Kevin Kellam sat down with a man close to one of the participants in
this dream match, the special council to the Tribal Chief Paul Heyman who called the entire
thing a “masturbatory fantasy”.
“We can speculate all we want about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stepping into the ring
with Roman Reigns.
It’s masturbatory fantasies until there’s a piece of paper in front of us with Dwayne
Johnson’s signature on it.
Then I know it’s real.
And until then, it’s just fantasy” He then swerved into a promo on Rock saying:
“it’s a fantasy of Dwayne Johnson to step into the ring with the greatest of all time,
Roman Reigns...and until he puts his name on a contract, it’s just his fantasy.”
For something that is not happening he sure is talking about it alot.
Before I go, you might remember that I lost WrestleLeague ages ago at the start of the
year, yeah I forgot about it too.
As all losers before me I did eventually do my music video punishment, a cover of John
Cena’s entrance theme Basic Thugonomics which you can watch RIGHT NOW over on PFK.
There’s a link in the description below so head on over, leave a comment and let me
know what you think.