This year’s WrestleMania was the first one truly with no Vince McMahon influence, and people in the company were excited.
Ahead of WrestleMania 39, Vince McMahon had forced his way back into the company. Not long after, he’d started affecting and making changes to creative. Even though he didn’t directly deal with the creative team, he’d eventually make adjustments and call in to disapprove of elements of the show or people involved. Until WrestleMania weekend.
McMahon hadn’t been seen around at shows for months, but reappeared during last year’s WrestleMania weekend. Fightful has heard of at least one match that he outright changed the finish to, switching the winner and loser.
We’re told Vince McMahon had long been in favor of Roman Reigns retaining over Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 39, but that result had actually been decided well ahead of time.
Now, McMahon had zero influence over this year’s WrestleMania, either himself or by proxy. Numerous higher ups in WWE have stated they believe there is no incentive to further any creative preferences or agendas McMahon has. They also believe McMahon is also far more concerned about the very real issues facing him regarding Janel Grant and other incidents.
“An aura of excitement” is how one top talent told us things felt that week. They reiterated that they don’t put the disgusting acts McMahon is alleged of perpetrating in the rearview, but that the cloud of him possibly forcing his way in to “fuck up everyone’s good time” is no longer there.
Beyond his influence no longer being felt within WWE, we’re told that Vince McMahon wasn’t expected to pop up at the show, and he didn't. That being said, several of the sources who told us that said that sometimes McMahon appearances haven’t really been wanted in the past. There were a lot of eye rolls at Vince McMahon's personal trainer posting an IG post shaming those who turned their backs on him.
WWE Raw After Mania was another point of excitement for several we spoke to in WWE, as this year it was unimpeded. Numerous people in the company we heard from said that they haven’t truly felt like the show was an “event” in years, and now it has much more of a possibility of being the type of show that fans remember. While McMahon’s influence up until then had only been reported, he showed up at last year’s Raw After Mania and made sweeping changes that led to one of the most universally panned episodes of Raw in history. Numerous talent and agents said they believe the original plans for the show were much better before Vince interfered.
“There were still a few tickets on Stubhub” one WWE official told Fightful ahead of WrestleMania, declining to say much else about Vince McMahon.
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