Vince McMahon Explains Why WWE Fired Co-Presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson

Vince McMahon shed some light on WWE's recent corporate shakeup during Thursday's investor's conference call for the 2019 financial fourth quarter. The company made headlines last week when it announced that co-presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson had both been let go, and that there was no immediate succession plan. Early on in the call McMahon brought up both of them, commending them for their years working in the company before saying their departure was due to a "different view of execution.

"The decision of management transition was based on a different view of execution over areas of focus," McMahon said. "Over 10 years, supported by a strong management team, George Barrios and Michelle [Wilson] made more than significant contributions to WWE."

"However, with the change, we won't miss a beat," he added. "We have a deep team of talented executives committed to our company who are more than capable of executing our strategy."

McMahon also commented on their departure in the announcement press release.

"I would like to thank George and Michelle for their 10+ years of service and contributions to the organization," McMahon said. "I am grateful for all that was accomplished during their tenure, but the Board and I decided a change was necessary as we have different views on how best to achieve our strategic priorities moving forward.

"We have a deep team of talented, experienced and committed executives across the organization, and the Board and I have great confidence in our collective abilities to create compelling content, engage our global fanbase across platforms, increase revenues, and drive shareholder value," he added.

Elsewhere on the conference call, McMahon discussed the possibility of WWE selling its pay-per-view rights from the WWE Network to another streaming service.

"We have a lot of options. We could continue on as we are now, with an enhancement of a tier.

"We also have an option right now, there's no more better time to exercise the selling of our rights to all the majors who, quite frankly, all the majors are really clamoring for our content," he added. "So that could be a significant increase, obviously, in terms of revenue."

He later indicated that a deal was close to being done, saying, "Making reference to OTT and the interest of the major players, we'd be announcing that deal if we go that way, in the first quarter, that's how far along we are."