Anyone who tells you they know what’s happening next with WWE is wrong

Vince McMahon has been the driving force behind WWE and pro wrestling for decades, and no on knows what they will be like without him.

As Friday afternoon news dumps go, the announcement that Vince McMahon was retiring from WWE is as big as it gets. Not only is the company and its product molded in his image, just about every facet of pro wrestling today, including the concept of “sports entertainment,” owes him a debt.

That’s not an exaggeration. At this point, only the oldest wrestling fans can even remember a time before Vince McMahon. The idea that he would leave not only his executive positions but his role as head of creative was so foreign that the common assumption was that he’d just hold them until he died.

And maybe he would have, if not for the explosive allegations that have dogged him for the past few months. To its credit, WWE seems like it’s in as strong a position as it’s ever been to continue and thrive without Vince McMahon in charge. Stephanie McMahon, who has literally grown up in the business, and Nick Khan, whose rise within WWE has been meteoric, to say the least, make for a formidable tandem.

But there are a number of questions about what WWE will look like going forward, and no one knows the answers right this second. For starters, who will take over Vince’s role as head of creative? The assumption is that Kevin Dunn and Bruce Prichard will run with the ball for now, but that’s not necessarily the case. Fightful Select is reporting that there were “rampant and unconfirmed rumors among talent that they expect Kevin Dunn to be the next to leave,” so it’s possible the shakeup of the creative team has just begun.

Whoever crafts WWE storylines going forward won’t have to worry about Vince McMahon looking over their shoulder either. That’s a huge change in the way things have long been done, and one that could be for better or worse.

There are other changes afoot as well. Earlier the same day as the Vince McMahon announcement, WWE revealed that Paul “Triple H” Levesque had returned to his prior position of EVP, Talent Relations. The ripple effects of that move could be significant, with Daniel Yanofsky of The Sporting News noting that it was “a clear indication” that longtime Vince McMahon confidant John Laurinaitis — who was also named in the allegations that have ensnared Vince — would be “out of the company.”

It’s also possible that some talent simply doesn’t want to find out what a Vince-less WWE is like. Numerous outlets reported that Brock Lesnar, who is supposed to be in the main event of SummerSlam at the end of the month, walked out of SmackDown once he heard the news.

That’s an indication of just how uncharted the waters are that WWE, and the business as a whole, are about to enter. There have been many references in various facets of life in 2022 about how we’re living in unprecedented times, but few are as true as they are for wrestling at this particular moment. WWE programming over the next few months could look very similar to the status quo, or it could be radically different.

The truth is that no one knows for sure, because for more than 40 years, pro wrestling has always had Vince McMahon looming large over it. All that’s left now is to sit back and watch what it means when that’s no longer the case.