Patrick Dooley, WWE’s Senior Vice President of Global Strategy and Corporate Development, is no longer with the company, according to PWInsider.
The outlet reports that Dooley left quietly in late July, and attributes the information to a WWE executive with direct knowledge of the situation. Neither WWE nor Dooley has said anything publicly, and no announcement was made at the time.
His position was effectively second to Paul Levesque on everything outside of creative, and credits him with a significant role in WWE’s acquisition of AAA, in the partnership that took AAA to FOX Latin America, and in NXT’s return to Full Sail University. WWE’s purchase of AAA in 2025 is a matter of record, though Dooley’s involvement in those deals rests on the outlet’s reporting.
He joined WWE in 2018 as Director of Global Strategy and worked his way up from there. He came to the company from the consultancy Oliver Wyman and holds an MBA from Wharton.
This places his departure alongside several others driven by budget cuts, and it lands in a year of them. WWE released 25 talents in a single day on April 24, with further departures into May taking the total past 29. Others were asked to accept substantial pay cuts, and Kofi Kingston and Austin Creed left rather than take one. TKO was reported to have instructed WWE to remove millions from its payroll. On June 30, PWInsider reported another round of corporate cuts affecting social media and digital staff.
The program has been criticized within the industry for its timing, with TKO executive compensation packages disclosed around the same period as the talent cuts and pay-cut requests, and the company’s stock at record levels.
