The following was reported on late Monday night from PWInsider.
Vince McMahon was personally and heavily involved with Monday night’s episode of Raw, as confirmed by multiple sources.
The report notes that about 15 to 20 minutes before WWE Raw went live on the air, there were said to be a number of late rewrites for the episode ordered and described as not a “feeling” like the type of changes talents and staff had come to expect under Triple H. The changes were said to continue throughout the show that came directly from Vince himself, who had his own office backstage.
While Vince McMahon stated in an interview with CNBC on Monday that he would not be “in the weeds” of creative, PWInsider said they were told by multiple sources who were at Raw that there was no doubt that Vince was firmly back in charge following the announcement of the impending merger with Endeavor.
The night reportedly started with Paul Levesque on headsets running Raw. However, as the show continued throughout the night, Vince was more and more involved as the person who was actually running the show. While Vince was working on a headset at WrestleMania 39, he was said to have been at the gorilla position for most of Monday Raw, directly overseeing the proceedings.
Among some of the talents PWInsider spoke with said there was a huge negative shift in morale as they realized things were going to go back to “exactly where they were” before Paul Levesque was placed in control as the company’s Chief Content Officer. One source told PWInsider the “place felt nuked.” The feeling going forward is the likelihood that Vince will be overseeing everything again, leaving the creative once again to his own whims and sensibilities. However, it was noted that whether that actually plays out remains to be seen.
Paul Levesque is genuinely liked and trusted by the talents, with some of them who were called up from NXT, have a feeling of security and is far departure from how some of the talents that PWInsider spoke to on Monday night.
PWInsider concluded by saying that there were some talents more or less shrugged it off, feeling they always suspected “all roads” would lead to Vince eventually being back in the central creative role, but want to see if this turns out t be a regular thing or whether it just happened on Monday night because Vince was in Los Angeles for WrestleMania and the Endeavor acquisition announcement. One person even joked WWE was always Vince’s world and now it’s back in the palm of his hand after he willingly gave it up last summer.