WWE CEO Nick Khan appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast to talk about WWE, Vince McMahon’s return, the Saudi Arabia rumor that was never true to begin with an more.
Khan was asked if Vince McMahon coming back to WWE, Stephanie McMahon leaving, and rumors of a WWE sale seem insane to him:
“From the inside, it’s not that insane to me. But it’s also, you know, again, the word, insider, when you’re on the inside, you sort of see things that might be coming and know what might be coming. You know, my thought has always been, there’s only one boss at WWE and it ain’t me. Vince is obviously the founder, creator of the company. He’s also the controlling shareholder, which is, you know, that’s not a work term. That’s a legal term. So I think it was always my point of view, or was Stephanie’s point of view at some point, he would come back. I think the way that he played it, to me, was smart in that he went away for five, six months, which people, meaning the audience, seems to like when somebody does that. He came back and took control back of his company as a control shareholder. So it is the public’s company as a publicly traded company, but with that controlling share, gave him a lot of authority and he used it, and I applaud him for doing so.”
Khan was asked McMahon decided to come back:
“Well, so here’s what I’d say. You and I had a conversation. I don’t remember the exact time frame, but whenever the Ray Rice stuff happened in the NFL, 8 or 10 years ago, whatever that was, and there were conversations at that point, not your point of view, not my point of view, that, ‘Oh, is Roger Goodell gonna resign?’ If you remember, he had a lot of heat on. I think you and I both concluded to each other, ‘Well, no advertiser has fled, ratings aren’t down, the product seems to continue to build, why would he resign? Why would he do that?’ So I’ve been here (here in L.A.) for 22 or 23 years. Sometimes I think it’s just a three mile radius of L.A. thing, the, ‘Hey step down and you have to sort of be punished for it.’ It didn’t used to be that way. So I think for somebody like Vince, and by the way, you and he are two different people, but you’re both founder CEOs. I think founder CEOs are different than regular CEOs. So consider me for this moment in time a regular CEO. There’s something about the founder CEO that sees the vision, sort of sees the future, can get there a moment in time before others can and then everyone else catches up.”
On why Vince initially stepped down:
“I think Vince saw sort of the tonnage of things that were coming at him and us. One thing he’s always said, and you know this as a longtime fan. I’m a longtime fan also. He’ll do whatever’s best for business. Whether it’s bringing the Ultimate Warrior back 20 plus years ago, or whatever that might be, I think at that moment in time, he saw what’s best for business was for him to step away for a while. So he did, and he really did step away. So there was no, ‘Hey, why are you doing this’, or, ‘I wouldn’t do it that way.’ It was, in my opinion, total freedom to Stephanie, myself, and to Triple H on the creative side. It’s only been a week. But he really, I believe what he said publicly about, ‘Hey, I’m here to engage in strategic alternatives and the media rights.’
Khan was asked if he’s seen Vince involved with anything else:
Khan said, “Zero. None. And by the way, I made it a point as did others to see him once a month or so while he was sitting out. I think those things are important, and it’s no different, in my opinion, than when other mutual friends of ours who have gone through hard times professionally, that’s when they sort of need to hear from folks most that, hey, you haven’t forgotten about them, and you’re appreciative of them, and all of those things. So I think in staying in contact that way, which was mostly social and personal, there was never a moment of, ‘No, do it this way, or do it that way.’ It just didn’t happen.”
There’s a lot more covered in the interview. Click below to listen.
