Nick Khan used a staff town hall on Monday to make clear that Triple H will continue in his role as WWE’s head of creative, while also pushing back on online criticism of the WrestleMania 42 product. According to sources who viewed the town hall and informed POST Wrestling, Khan told staff that Paul Levesque will remain in his current position overseeing WWE creative. It is unclear whether the comments reflect a formal contract extension or a less formal support of his performance. WWE communications staff did not immediately return a request for clarification on that distinction.
Khan was also prompted by TKO President Mark Shapiro during the town hall to address the online criticism surrounding WWE’s recent creative decisions, particularly the perception that WrestleMania 42 night one was less well received than night two. Khan characterized the criticism as coming from a vocal minority, a position consistent with what he has said publicly on multiple occasions, including at the CAA World Congress of Sports earlier this month.
He went further by reading multiple messages, believed to be tweets, from around 2015 that criticized WWE’s product at the time. The apparent purpose was to argue that online criticism of WWE has historically been an unreliable indicator of the company’s actual standing, given that the product continued to grow commercially in the years that followed.
The town hall comes in the wake of a tumultuous WrestleMania 42 weekend that included internal frustration over TKO’s direct involvement in the creative direction for Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll, which originated with Ari Emanuel rather than WWE’s creative team. Dave Meltzer reported that the decision was described internally as TKO using its ultimate creative authority at the most inopportune time. The post-WrestleMania period also brought the release of 25 wrestlers.
