It looks like there is more to this situation than a hiatus.
Earlier this month Stephanie McMahon announced she would be beginning a hiatus from her role as the Chief Brand Officer of her fathers company. Nick Khan has took over McMahon’s responsibilities since. There have been several reports that there is more to this situation based on backstage reactions and now it seems like things are going from bad to worse.
While speaking on “We’re Live Pal,” Andrew Zarian addressed Stephanie McMahon’s leave of absence and the various rumors surrounding her hiatus. Zarian stated that he had a conversation with someone high up, revealing that McMahon’s abilities were actually questioned internally and also by investors.
“[It was a] very bizarre conversation, I’ll tell you that. I didn’t expect that phone call. It was a phone call that kind of veered into a discussion about Steph. So I asked and I was like, ‘hey, anything I could add to this? What’s going on?’ And, you know, some of the comments, I was shocked. One being that people internally and this is coming from someone in the know in WWE. This wasn’t like a guy in catering.”
The comment was that internally, there was doubt put on Steph [and] her abilities as an executive. And a lot of this started after she absorbed some of Michelle Wilson’s responsibilities after she left. One [responsibility] being ad sales and sponsorship. And the comment that I found interesting was that they mentioned that the investors were questioning why they weren’t performing as well.
And internally, there was some questioning as to why that wasn’t performing. I think a month ago, [WWE’s Head of Global Sales & Partnerships] Claudine Lilien…she went over to handle that and she was released a month ago and Nick [Khan] has taken over all these responsibilities. When the Shane issue happened at Royal Rumble, WWE was pretty quick to kind of say, yeah he got sent home for all the reasons that you heard, right? I was not expecting the words to be used for Steph because at the end of the day, the McMahons are the McMahons and they are the most protected people in that company.”
Andrew Zarian on We’re Live Pal
Time will tell if or when Stephanie McMahon returns to the WWE following her hiatus. Hopefully this is not the end of Stephanie’s executive career.
h/t to WrestlingNews.co
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