Backstage News On Triple H’s Creative Power In WWE, Removal Of Vince McMahon

A new report has provided some insight into who gave Paul “Triple H” Levesque full control of the WWE creative process.

It was in July 2022 when Vince McMahon “retired” from WWE due to multiple hush-money sex scandals involving Vince paying off numerous women to cover up various affairs that he had. With Vince on the sidelines at that time, his son-in-law, WWE Hall of Famer Paul “Triple H” Levesque took over as the Chief Content Officer, which meant Triple H was in charge of WWE’s creative team.

Putting Triple H in charge of the WWE Creative team was a natural transition since he was running WWE’s NXT brand for about a decade before he had a serious health issue in 2021.

In January of this year, Vince McMahon made a power play to return to WWE as the Executive Chairman. That also led to Vince editing some WWE shows with creative changes.

Most notably, Vince changed a lot of things on the Raw after WrestleMania, which was reported heavily and led to complaints from fans. That same day, Endeavor announced they had acquired WWE to form TKO along with the UFC. Last month, the deal became official.

Earlier this week, it was reported by PWInsider Elite that Vince McMahon is not expected to be heavily involved in creative going forward. The belief backstage is that Triple H has been “knighted” by Endeavor and is expected to handle 99.9% of all creative operations.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter by Dave Meltzer summed up the current WWE Creative process this way.

“Regarding the creative process, right now Paul Levesque is the person in charge. He’s the one making all the key decisions. Bruce Prichard is a conduit between creative, talent relations and talent services. Ed Koskey is the operations person who keeps the scripts flowing. At the moment, Vince McMahon is out of the creative process, but it was stressed to me the term ‘at the moment.’ McMahon is still the person in charge of the company with the most power but Levesque is running creative and Nick Khan is making the business moves.”

Ari Emanuel of Endeavor made the decision to give Triple H more power

There is some more news regarding the news that Triple H has been given more creative authority by Endeavor. It is being reported by Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso that Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel was the person who made the call to give Triple H more power.

“Multiple contacts within the WWE and UFC have confirmed that Ari Emanuel, who wields power as the Endeavor CEO, is behind the change. Emanuel has long been a firm believer that, in order for an organization to be as effective as possible, people need to do the job they are assigned. In this case, that approach has empowered Levesque to exert his full influence in the company’s creative sphere.”

The report adds that Vince McMahon is overseeing a lucrative new media rights deal for Raw and the NXT brand.

Considering WWE business is so strong in terms of sold out arenas, the television audience staying strong, Peacock numbers going up and an increase in Smackdown TV rights, it is a smart move to keep Triple H in the job he is currently in.

Triple H announced on last night’s Smackdown to announce Adam Pearce as the new General Manager of Raw and Nick Aldis as the new General Manager of Smackdown. Triple H does not appear on WWE TV that often any more, but when he does, it usually leads to big news just like it did last night.