Vince McMahon is back. The longtime WWE Chairman was re-elected to the company’s board of directors within the first week of 2023, just hours after reports broke of his intended comeback. Days after Vince resumed his corporate duties, WWE Chairwoman and co-CEO Stephanie McMahon resigned from her positions, leaving CEO responsibilities in the sole hands of Nick Khan while Vince took over as chairman of the board once more. All these rapid changes have been made with Vince’s intended effort to assist with the sale of the company, but recent rumblings have indicated that Vince could seep his way back into WWE creative as well.
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Speaking on The Bill Simmons Show, WWE CEO Nick Khan admitted that he was not all too shocked by Vince’s return.
“From the inside, it’s not that insane to me,” Khan said (h/t Fightful). “But when you’re on the inside, you sort of see things that are coming and know what might be coming. My thought has always been, there’s only one boss in WWE, and Vince is the founder and creator of the company, he’s also the controlling shareholder. That’s not a work term, that’s a legal term.”
Khan continued that he and others often anticipated that Vince would come back to the company.
“It was always my point of view, always Stephanie’s point of view, that at some point, he could come back,” Khan continued. “The way he played it, to me, was smart in that he went away for five or six months, which the audience seems to like when somebody does that. He came back and took control back of his company as a controlling shareholder. With that controlling share gave him a lot of authority and he used it. I applaud him for doing so.”
While some have seen Vince’s return as his way of maximizing his controlling shareholder power, Khan looks at it differently.
“I didn’t see it as a force. I think Vince saw a ton of things coming at him and us and he thought, one thing he’s always said, he’ll do whatever is best for business,” Khan added. “At that moment, he saw what was best for business was for him to step away for a while, so he did. He really did step away. There was no, ‘Why are you doing this? I wouldn’t do it that way.’ It was total freedom to Stephanie, myself, and Triple H on the creative side. It’s only been a week, but I believe what he said publicly about ‘I’m here to engage in strategic alternatives in the media rights.’ So far, the engagement has been that and other board issues.”
Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for updates on Vince’s WWE return.
