June 15, 2020 Observer Newsletter: WWE creative shakeup, death of Mr. Wrestling II

The continued decline in WWE ratings have led to a change at press time as Bruce Prichard will take over as full creative head under Vince McMahon starting immediately and Paul Heyman, at least in theory, will return to just being a television performer.

WWE announced on 6/11, “In an effort to streamline our creative writing process for television, we have consolidated both teams from Raw and SmackDown into one group, led by Bruce Prichard. Paul Heyman will concentrate on his role as an in-ring performer.”

Heyman was working with dual contracts, a performer’s contract and an employee management contract, the latter of which was terminated on 6/11.

Raw had been doing its lowest ratings in its history during the pandemic but every wrestling show has had similar drops. What was notable is that the idea that Vince McMahon even said himself at the last conference call was that Raw was introducing so many new stars and it would take time to get them over, but claimed the numbers would bounce back when the new stars got over.

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