What Did Vince McMahon Change From This Week's WWE Raw
Vince McMahon was not present at the Allstate Arena for this week's Monday Night Raw, but did reportedly force some script rewrites for this week's episode. McMahon revealed shortly after Endeavor announced it was merging WWE and the UFC into one company that he'd be stepping back onto the WWE Creative team to oversee "big picture" decisions. That resulted in him operating from Gorilla Position during the Raw after WrestleMania and rewriting the show multiple times, much to the frustration of fans watching in the arena and at home.
McMahon reportedly hasn't been at a TV taping since then and news of him changing up creative plans have been sparse since then. But news of him changing up this week's show popped up before the episode even began. PWInsider's Mike Johnson then had an update on what was changed. That included adding the Street Profits vs. Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin match to the card and scrapping "a number of segments" involving women. That included a backstage segment with Candice LeRae and Piper Niven and an interaction between Adam Pearce, Sonya Deville and other wrestlers. This was apparently done to set up the six-women tag match with Damage CTRL, Bianca Belair, Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan.
The finishes to matches were also reversed or slightly altered, but it wasn't determined which ones. The card included Cody Rhodes beating Finn Balor and Damian Priest forcing a disqualification in the main event against Rey Mysterio.
The show also featured Paul Levesque unveiling the new World Heavyweight Championship, which will reside on whichever brand Roman Reigns doesn't get drafted to. The inaugural champion will be crowned at the Night of Champions pay-per-view next month in Saudi Arabia. Despite McMahon's return, Levesque will keep his Chief Creative Officer position going forward.
"How does that work? Does that mean that technically because I'm in charge of the business side of the business that I don't seek input from other people. I wouldn't seek input from Vince McMahon, who created this entire empire? That would be a mistake on my behalf. Paul and Vince, a family relationship, a relationship that spans back to the mid-90s. Paul is in charge of creative. If he wants input from Vince or Vince has ideas that he and Paul are going to communicate, that's always going to be the case," WWE CEO Nick Khan explained in an interview with LightShed Live earlier this month.
WWE Backlash 2023 Card
- Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar
- SmackDown Women's Championship: Rhea Ripley vs. Zelina Vega
- United States Championship: Austin Theory vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Bronson Reed
- Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn & Matt Riddle vs. Solo Sikoa & The Usos
- Seth Rollins vs. Omos
- Bad Bunny vs. Damian Priest (Street Fight)