Partial Source: Pwinsider
— CM Punk will defend the WWE Championship against John Cena and Big Show in a Triple Threat Match at SummerSlam on August 19. The match was determined on RAW after the Cena vs. Show bout resulted in No Contest due to interference from Punk. RAW General Manager AJ then announced the match, which led to Punk scolding her as RAW went off the air.
— John Laurinaitis’ resignation as Senior Vice President of Talent Operations is legit and not a part of any storyline. As previously reported, Laurinaitis was quietly removed from the WWE Corporate website several weeks ago.
The WWE story attributed the resignation to “burnt out”, though several people in the company have indicated that it’s more a signal of Triple H taking control of parts of the company. Laurinaitis’ responsibilities as Senior VP of Talent Operations had been less and less significant over the last several years, with Stephanie McMahon and Triple H taking over that area more and more.
The company released the following statement prior to RAW going live:
Effective immediately, John Laurinaitis is resigning from his position as Senior Vice President of Talent Operations. Following his very public firing at June’s No Way Out, Laurinaitis continued to work behind-the-scenes in his corporate role. After eight years of service in talent relations, he’s “burned out” and now hopes to concentrate on what he knows best: putting together matches and working with WWE talent as a producer.
As noted earler, Laurinaitis has always been the main person who puts together WWE live event cards. This is not a work by any means and is just another example of Laurinaitis scaling back on his WWE duties as of late. We’ve been reporting for weeks now that Laurinaitis continues to lose “real-life power”. Many of his former duties have been taken away from him and given to new hires of the company by Paul “Triple H” Levesque. It should also be noted that Pete Leone has been given even more responsibility in the talent relations department of WWE.
