Backstage News On How WWE Reacted To Significant Departure
A big name left WWE recently and there is some news on how the company feels about it.
In the final days of 2023, WWE’s Executive Producer and Chief of Global Television Distribution Kevin Dunn announced he was leaving the company, effective immediately. Dunn worked for WWE for 40 years and was a close ally of Vince McMahon for many years.
After Kevin Dunn’s announcement, WWE President Nick Khan issued an email to staff thanking Dunn for his work in WWE over the last 40 years.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter wrote about the 61-year-old Dunn moving on from the company while adding that WWE personnel were shocked about it.
“It was Kevin Dunn’s decision to leave, which one source said dated back about two months when Endeavor started wanting to make budget cuts to improve profitability in the department and started making decisions on the production side without relying on his opinions. Dunn had been basically autonomous in his position for decades, only having to answer to Vince McMahon.”
“With McMahon out of power many did feel this was inevitable. When McMahon was first out of power in 2022, a lot of people expected that Dunn and others from that era would be out with Levesque bringing in his own team. At the time we were told that with McMahon and John Laurinaitis leaving the way they did, they didn’t want any other major changes as far as top executives with the idea it would hurt the stock price, at least at that time.”
“The feeling was that change would happen but it would be down the line. Still, it was a shock to most in the company when Mike Johnson first broke the story, and was later confirmed to reporters two days later as well as to all employees by the company.”
It was added by Meltzer that “Dunn is believed to be worth somewhere between $40 million and $60 million” and was worth as much money as any company employee in history, except for maybe Nick Khan and the McMahon family.
Possible WWE Replacements For Kevin Dunn
There are two names in WWE that are expected to pick up some of the work that Dunn had been doing. Meltzer wrote about Marty Miller and Chris Kaiser handling more responsibilities.
“Marty Miller’s name was mentioned. He’s the Director but what’s something completely different and in particular, the aspect of Dunn’s job dealing with budgets.”
“At one point the attempt was to make Chris Kaiser the Executive Producer who would handle the budgets and Dunn as the guy handling the shows and making the final decisions. It could end up with Miller running the truck and Kaiser handling the budgets but that’s all speculation at this point.”
The next WWE television is the New Year’s Revolution edition of Smackdown on January 5th with Randy Orton, AJ Styles and LA Knight facing off in a triple threat match.