Later Thursday evening, WWE officially announced they were streamlining their creative process, placing Bruce Prichard in charge of both Raw and SmackDown and removing Paul Heyman from his Executive Director role. The move was met with shock amongst the WWE Universe, but as more information surfaces, why this decision was made might be even more surprising.
According to reports that circulated in the hours following the announcement, the news isn't exactly coming as a shock to a lot of the wrestlers backstage. While some are bit surprised, Fightful.com is reporting that others were not unprepared for the move. They write:
"Others indicating they could see the writing on the wall of late. It should be noted that nobody we’ve talked to said that they knew of the change before WWE announced it on Twitter."
So too, popular Twitter account @WrestleVotes is writing, "Regarding the creative change, source indicates that RAW has been a mess lately." They add, "At times recently the show has changed up to the point of air. While the blame isn’t solely on Heyman, he is the one taking the fall here. “It couldn’t continue like this” was an exact quote I got."
Others have noted that Vince McMahon has been unhappy with the direction of the show for some time. PWInsider reports he's been "very upset" and openly "frustrated" with Raw.
The news is fascinating because a number of fans have liked the general direction of the red brand under Heyman's guidance. While it hasn't been perfect, things seemed to be moving in a strong direction and new stars were getting a chance to shine. So too, Heyman was coming up on almost one full year as the Executive Director.
Why The Sudden Problem?
Perhaps Vince McMahon was stepping in a lot more with the low ratings after a quarterly investors call where he admitted the show was struggling while SmackDown hadn't seen much of a dip in numbers. Perhaps the pandemic and pressure to find ways to improve the show were over-running the creative process?
Early consensus seems to be that Heyman is being blamed for the chaos, even if it wasn't necessarily his doing.