Vince McMahon Originally Scheduled To Be At WWE Backlash
Vince McMahon’s name has not been far from headlines since he returned to WWE at the beginning of 2023 and now it appears he was originally set to be at Backlash in Puerto Rico.
Rick Bassman is a former Disney executive and wrestling promoter who was at Backlash in Puerto Rico to meet with WWE management over opportunities regarding his current “deep fake” job.
Speaking to Nick Hausman on the Haus of Wrestling podcast, Bassman noted that he was at Backlash for talks with WWE “top brass”:
“I have a day job these days, and I run all entertainment and sports industry relations for a company that does hyper-real synthetic media, which is often known as the dark, nefarious, deep fake. And we’re verifiably the number one company in the world doing this now. Far and away the number one, we’re called Metaphysic.
“And we recently did things like brought Elvis Presley back to life to perform on America’s Got Talent, which was hugely viral. We create and produce and distribute ‘Deep Tom Cruise,’ which is a very viral thing on Tik Tok and YouTube and whatnot, and just wrapped a movie in London with the director Robert Zemeckis, where we were aging Tom Hanks and Robin Wright up and back over a period of 50 years.
“So we’re at the pinnacle of that industry right now. And we’ve got a really cool activation potential underway with WWE. So we were there meeting with the top brass about that.”
Bassman then noted that Vince McMahon wasn’t present at the meetings but was originally meant to be at Backlash, something that will only increase speculation over his involvement in the company’s day-to-day operations:
“No, he wasn’t there. But I got a really nice email from him Saturday morning saying, ‘Hey, I’m not going to make it. But let’s, you know, I’ll talk to the guys after the meeting. And we’ll continue on from there.’”
“I did wind up meeting with the top guys in the company after events. But he was initially scheduled to be part of that, yes.”
Backlash ended with Cody Rhodes defeating Brock Lesnar in the main event but one WWE Hall of Famer thinks another bout should have gone on last.