Vince McMahon Has Very Little Involvement With Mixed Match Challenge

TheSportster

By Ross Kelly

Published Jan 13, 2018

McMahon has seemingly been the overseer for everything WWE-produced for as long as we can remember. But he was very hands-off for the MMC.

via allwrestling.com

The Mixed Match Challenge is a landmark occasion for the WWE. Not only does the company generate great PR by publicly stating that its Superstars will be donating to charity, but the series also marks an exclusive partnership with Facebook. The matches will only stream on Facebook's video on demand service, Facebook Watch, and WWE will undoubtedly look to levarage this into more business opportunities with the social media giant.

Seeing how big of an occasion this is, one would think that Vince McMahon would have played a large role in its creation and production. But that is not the case according to The Wrestling Observer who says that McMahon was largely hands off with the project.

"The MMC is a Ryan Ward project. Vince and Kevin Dunn (EVP of Television Production) don't have a lot to do with it. If you like the NXT product more than WWE, then you are probably going to like the MMC," said Bryan Alvarez of The Observer.

Ward is the lead writer for SmackDown Live and seems to have spearheaded this project. McMahon is still the head honcho of WWE, but he has taken a backseat to the likes of Dunn, Ward and Triple H over recent years.

Alvarez also said that Ward got the idea for a Facebook show after seeing UFC broadcast fights on Facebook. He pitched the idea to McMahon who gave the green light, but the MMC is more of a Ryan Ward-creation than a Vince McMahon one.

The full bracket for the MMC was recently released, and while it's star-studded, it is also missing some of the biggest names or most popular Superstars. No AJ Styles, John Cena, Randy Orton, Kevin Owens or any members of The Shield. That's further proof that this isn't a McMahon-idea, as if it was, you know he would have brought out the big guns for the show.

Nevertheless, the Mixed Match Challenge will air over the next 12 weeks with each episode being 20 minutes in length. The finals will air on Tuesday, April 3 which is the final week before WrestleMania 34.