Triple H said to have recently received ‘a quiet demotion’ within WWE management

Back in January, WWE shocked the business world with the announcement Co-Presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson were leaving the company.

According to this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, those weren’t the only management changes going on around that time. Dave Meltzer writes that “people in the company continually hinted that something almost as big” as the Wilson & Barrios firing “was being kept quiet that happened in December but said it would have to come out when the company made it clear.”

The way the “big happening” was made clear seems to have been via WWE’s recent filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

Paul “Triple H” Levesque is now listed as Executive Vice President of Global Talent Development & Strategy. That’s a change from his previous title: EVP of Talent, Live Events and Creative.

More from the WON:

“So he was moved away from being in charge of talent and his main duties are now NXT, selling NXT TV rights overseas and expanding NXT globally. Brad Blum, Vince McMahon’s Chief of Staff, took over Levesque’s other duties as Executive Vice President of Operations, overseeing the divisions Levesque was formerly overseeing. It’s a change. There are those internally and externally who have called it a quiet demotion. The labeling of his new title gives the impression that he’s the guy negotiating with talent, but that is one of the things he was removed from doing. Mark Carrano [WWE Senior Director of Talent Relations] no longer reports to Levesque and now reports to Blum. Either way, it is curious that this was kept quiet for nearly four months.”

Given the importance of NXT both as both an AEW countermeasure and a way to grow the company globally, I’m sure this is being framed as a strategic re-focusing - which makes more sense to me than calling it a demotion. But any time duties and direct reports are stripped away from someone, there are going to be folks who see that as a step down.

Let us know what you think. We’ll certainly keep an eye on this going forward.