Vince McMahon was absent from the WWE Royal Rumble last night, and Triple H, Shane McMahon, and Bruce Prichard served in the most important leadership roles in his absence, though Shane is gone from WWE management and only served as a producer. Vince reportedly still spoke to the team on the phone. Vince’s brother Rod McMahon recently died.
Shane McMahon was a lead producer for the Men’s Royal Rumble match, working with Jamie Noble and Jason Jordan. Abyss, Adam Pearce, TJ Wilson, and Pat Buck produced the Women’s Royal Rumble match. Edge and Bianca Belair were the winners of the Rumble matches.
Triple H was said to be the leader backstage, with Bruce Prichard and Kevin Dunn running their respective departments as usual. Ringside News first reported all of these details.
Shane also returned last year to produce the Royal Rumble match, featuring Drew McIntyre’s win after a dominant performance by Brock Lesnar. Despite this, Shane has no role in WWE management currently, and his only current WWE role is occasional talent and producer.
Shane’s last regular on screen role with WWE was when ‘Raw Underground’ aired in summer 2020 during the third hour of Raw, a storyline idea that Shane did pitch to Vince. Shane last appeared at Survivor Series as part of The Undertaker’s retirement ceremony. His most recent match was on the FOX premiere of Smackdown in October 2019, losing to Kevin Owens.
Triple H runs NXT and is expected to someday take over wrestling operations of WWE, with Nick Khan running the business aspect after negotiating WWE Network’s highly lucrative deal with Peacock.
