News

Dutch Mantell Believes Vince McMahon Doesn’t Trust Some Superstars

Vince McMahon makes announcement

There have been some pretty big names leaving WWE this year either by the company choosing to release them or leaving as free agents. Now wrestling legend Dutch Mantell believes that part of the reason for so much change is because WWE Chairman doesn’t trust some of the superstars that he has in the company.

Some of the names that are no longer in WWE that ended up AEW are Andrade El Idolo, Malakai Black, Ruby Soho, Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson. Plus, former main event talent like Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman were released this year. In addition to that, former WWE Champion CM Punk returned to wrestling after seven years and chose to do so in AEW rather than go back to WWE.

Dutch Mantell spoke to Smack Talk recently and said that AEW is letting the wrestlers show what they can do without all of the micromanagement that exists in WWE:

“All these ex-WWE guys are coming in. I don’t know because if it’s all ex-WWE guys, they can still have great shows. They showed you what they could do in WWE if they let them go with it. But I don’t think Vince (McMahon) trusts talent. I mean he will probably let top talent say what they want to say, but he doesn’t trust, you know, the underneath brand. Because there’s no telling what they’ll say. I never liked the micromanaging when I was there. I dealt with it because I had no choice. You deal with it and try to get with it the best you can.”

Dutch Mantell knows what he’s talking about with regards to pro wrestling because he’s been a wrestler, manager and member of creative teams for nearly 50 years. During his WWE career, Mantell worked as a manager named Uncle Zebekiah and later Zeb Colter.

AEW has a big week with Dynamite taking place at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City for a two-hour live episode of Dynamite and then a taped two-hour edition of Rampage from the same building. There are plenty of big matches advertised for both shows.

h/t Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription