As we previously reported here on eWn, Paul “Triple H” Levesque has taken on a major creative role in WWE by driving 99.9% of the company’s creative direction.
Fightful Select has shared a bunch of backstage details regarding Triple H’s anointing by WWE parent company Endeavor as the new creative lead.
It is reported that Executive Chairman of TKO Group Holdings Vince McMahon is no longer involved with the creative side of WWE.
There is a “significant prevailing belief” in WWE that the locker room has seen a morale boost due to Triple H leading the charge once again, and there has been an increase in optimism backstage in recent weeks compared to the past eight months.
WWE’s locker room morale hit an all-time low in early 2022 due to McMahon and his lack of creative vision.
However, things took a 180-degree turn after McMahon stepped down as CEO and Triple H took over the creative process in July 2022.
The backstage morale has grown multifold over the last couple of weeks, starting with the September 25 edition of RAW. Several WWE talents conveyed the sentiment.
The locker room has not been outright informed about McMahon being no longer involved in the creative process.
In addition, the majority of the talents were never explicitly told that McMahon was the one making creative changes following his return to the WWE Board of Directors this past January, despite many of them knowing that was indeed the case.
Around February, many talents were vocal about McMahon’s creative influence being felt again with the WWE on-air product.
Many WWE creative team members have reportedly not worked directly with McMahon this year, and he didn’t bother to attend creative meetings either.
When McMahon made creative changes remotely, he’d submit those changes usually right before the shows were about to kick off.
One of the exceptions was the post-WrestleMania 39 edition of RAW, which reportedly had significant widespread changes throughout.
By comparison, much of McMahon’s last-minute, remote changes came to a stop in recent weeks with the exception being the last-minute changes that had to be executed due to talents not being medically cleared, i.e. Damian Priest who wasn’t medically cleared to compete on last week’s RAW.
While McMahon’s changes continued to come in, those were minimal compared to how things were earlier.
Several sources have an “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude regarding McMahon possibly being removed from the creative process “for good.”
For instance, WWE appeared adamant that McMahon would not be returning to the company after he stepped down as CEO in July 2022.
The WWE Board of Directors twice denied McMahon’s attempts to return to WWE before he forcefully regained control of the company this past January.
However, Endeavor now looks fondly at Triple H in how he’s spearheading the WWE product as the Chief Content Officer.
With regard to the morale boost, a WWE higher-up mentioned the recent return of Johnny Gargano to RAW. The individual said,
“I think you can take a look at the show — Johnny Gargano is back after his return was nixed. Tegan Nox is on the show. Dragon Lee is all over the program. Carlito is finally factored in after being under contract for months. Cameron Grimes got back on TV. Bronson Reed is winning matches. Tag team titles and IC titles are getting long matches to end Raw. I’m not going to say that all of those are direct results of the situation, but all of those parts moving at the same time is a little too much to be a coincidence for me.”
According to another WWE talent, the feeling was that several Superstars were relieved from a moral and creative perspective when McMahon went into retirement last year.
The talent added that answering for McMahon’s controversial behavior wasn’t part of their job. Moreover, there was reportedly a lack of creative confidence in McMahon’s booking.
Earlier this year, McMahon reached a financial settlement with former referee Rita Chatterton who had made rape allegations against the 78-year-old billionaire.
McMahon was named as the Executive Chairman of the Board of TKO following the WWE-UFC merger last month.
