There have been a lot of changes behind the scenes in both WWE and AEW in the last few months.
The changes
This week, WWE announced that they had hired Lee Fitting as Head of Media and Production following the departure of Kevin Dunn, the longtime WWE head of production.
As previously reported, some people in WWE were not thrilled about the company hiring Fitting. For more on that internal reaction, click here.
Last month, Kevin Sullivan, the Vice President of Post-Production, was let go by AEW. It was a decision made by Mike Mansury, the Senior Vice President and Co-Executive Producer. Before joining AEW, Mansury had worked in WWE and, at one point, was considered Dunn’s replacement whenever he retired. However, Mansury felt he couldn’t advance at his desired rate and left the company.
The hires
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that many people in WWE wanted the company to get Mansury back prior to Fitting being hired.
“Yeah. So Lee Fitting came from ESPN. He was let go in August. He did Monday Night Football. He was very responsible for College Game Day. It was an interesting move because almost everybody expected someone from wrestling to be promoted. Whether it was somebody in the that was already working there with Kevin Dunn in WWE, which is the prediction, obviously, a lot of people wanted them to get Mike Mansury or thought that they would make a play for Mike Mansury, although I think that that would have been impossible. I mean, a lot of people just think, ‘Oh, you know, WWE snapped its fingers, they can get anyone.’ And the reality is his contracts are contracts. It ain’t that easy when you have that. So when I kept hearing his name, I kept saying like, ‘He’s under contract, and it happened at any time soon.’ So they went outside which makes sense because Nick Khan is the president of the company and Nick Khan’s connections are all in the sports world. Many times, whether it was Jimmy Smith or Adnan Virk, he made many calls that came to bringing people from the outside sports world into WWE both office, many office people he brought in were outside sports world people. So, it’s not a surprise. Wrestling is a different world, but maybe someone who’s very experienced in a different world can impart the real world into wrestling. Maybe not. Who knows?” Meltzer stated.
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