Kevin Dunn recently gave his notice to WWE after being one of the most important and key figures in the company’s history.
Tenure
Dunn was one of Vince McMahon’s most trusted employees, and he was one of the most influential people behind the scenes after decades of being with the company. Dunn oversaw the TV production.
It was said that Dunn told the company during Christmas week about his intentions to leave, with a big factor in his decision being the changes being made internally since TKO took over after the merger.
Vince McMahon has less power in the company than ever before, with Nick Khan handling the business side and Triple H in charge of creative. A source said that Dunn was “never going to do anything that was dictated” to him. He didn’t want to alter the production style compared to how he saw it, and it was a situation of the two sides having two different visions.
Internal reaction
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select reported that they spoke with “several shocked talent, who had no idea of the move. Some in WWE think that his role will likely be divided, as several have trained in aspects of Dunn’s role.”
People they heard from said that Dunn’s say had decreased over the last year-plus with McMahon no longer in charge and that anyone taking over those roles would likely not have anywhere near the power Dunn once had.
Dunn had also missed more shows than usual and there were some in the company who believed some in the older guard of WWE would be scaled back in the future with the belief this was a major chip to fall.
Moving into the future
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted Dunn is officially done with WWE.
“He will be done officially tomorrow at midnight [January 1] like a lot of other contracts that are up at the end of the year and not being renewed. The word would be retirement, you know? But look, when [Paul] Levesque came in, there were, essentially, when Levesque came in….Kevin Dunn for years, for years, I was told, essentially, like, ‘As long as Vince is there, Kevin Dunn will be there. And when Vince is gone, Kevin Dunn will be gone and Paul Levesque will bring in somebody else.’ And then when Vince was gone the first time in July, it was kind of like, and Kevin Dunn was not the only name, you know, I mean, there’s several names that were told to me and, I go like, ‘Does that mean Kevin Dunn’s gone? Does that mean the other people are gone?’ For stock reasons, the idea of Paul coming in and emptying out a lot of people at once would not go well, stock market-wise, so it’s going to be a slow process this will happen, but it will be one at a time, and it will not be soon. Then Vince got back into power. So now Vince does not have that power. And it was the end of the year.”
He added, “I mean, he’s a wealthy, wealthy man and, you know, so whatever. So he’ll be done in the wrestling business. And we’ll see when the new production comes in if we notice a difference. I mean, we’ll see. But he’s done now. Yeah, officially.”
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