Stephanie McMahon recently came up with a shocking announcement when she let the pro-wrestling world that she is taking a hiatus. She announced that she’ll be taking a “leave of absence” from WWE. Announcing on Twitter, Stephanie wrote the following statement that she’ll be stepping down from the majority of her responsibilities in WWE to focus on her family. She also added that she’s looking forward to returning. It has now come to light that several internal members of the company doubted her abilities in the role of WWE Chief Brand Officer.
It has been also noted that during one of the recent rounds of layoffs, several of Stephanie McMahon’s close coworkers were let go. A large portion of the team she worked directly with was let go at that time. It was previously reported that the company has been looking for people to take on her CBO duties, which confirms that it’s not expected that she will be back anytime soon.
Stephanie McMahon’s abilities were questioned
During a special edition of “We’re Live Pal,” Andrew Zarian, Dave Meltzer, Bryan Alvarez and Garrett Gonzalez talked about Stephanie McMahon’s leave of absence and the stories going around about her decision to step away. Andrew Zarian proceeded to address the situation and stated that he had a conversation with someone high up, revealing that McMahon’s abilities were actually questioned internally and also by investors, with indications Nick Khan may have gotten her replaced.
Zarian said:
“[It was a] very bizarre conversation, I’ll tell you that. I didn’t expect that phone call. It was a phone call that kind of veered into a discussion about Steph. So I asked and I was like, ‘hey, anything I could add to this? What’s going on?’ And, you know, some of the comments, I was shocked. One being that people internally and this is coming from someone in the know in WWE. This wasn’t like a guy in catering.”
“The comment was that internally, there was doubt put on Steph [and] her abilities as an executive. And a lot of this started after she absorbed some of Michelle Wilson’s responsibilities after she left. One [responsibility] being ad sales and sponsorship. And the comment that I found interesting was that they mentioned that the investors were questioning why they weren’t performing as well. And internally, there was some questioning as to why that wasn’t performing. I think a month ago, [WWE’s Head of Global Sales & Partnerships] Claudine Lilien…she went over to handle that and she was released a month ago and Nick [Khan] has taken over all these responsibilities. When the Shane issue happened at Royal Rumble, WWE was pretty quick to kind of say, yeah he got sent home for all the reasons that you heard, right? I was not expecting the words to be used for Steph because at the end of the day, the McMahons are the McMahons and they are the most protected people in that company.”
Meltzer then stated that he spoke to someone who heard about the efforts to keep the Stephanie McMahon story under wraps and it’s a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing because Zarian’s source clearly wanted the story out. Meltzer said:
“As far as Steph goes, like, if and when she comes back, and it won’t be soon, there’s a real good chance it won’t be in the same position…But it was interesting, because I talked to somebody about something similar and asked about Stephanie in that in that realm, and you know, certain things were explained that…there’s people who Stephanie dealt with that, but because Vince always had to answer, you know, she didn’t have the power. Nobody does. Vince has all the power. She’s someone who talks to Vince but at the end of the day, Vince is going to make those decisions. But the thing was, there’s some people who are saying stuff and a person told me – he’s like, ‘if anyone hears that, they’re gonna be gone. No one can say anything bad publicly about Steph.’ And it’s like like a left hand and a right hand thing. Yeah. You (Zarian) were told, in a way, because they wanted it out.”
Zarian said that the person used “buzzy” terms to him and those were terms that they wanted him to use in regards to leaking the story. Zarian pointed out how Nick Khan is now a senior executive in WWE because of how many office people have been let go. Stephanie McMahon also revealed she recently suffered an injury but that she is making great progress in training to get back to full strength. She recently made a WWE appearance at WrestleMania 38 when he introduced the Olympic Gold Medalist Gable Steveson to the fans in attendance.
