According to a new report, Shane McMahon might be due for a bigger role behind the scenes, as the son of WWE chairman Vince McMahon could soon be replacing Bruce Prichard as Monday Night Raw’s creative head.
On Friday, Alex McCarthy of Sportskeeda cited an anonymous source, writing that McMahon is being considered as a possible replacement for Prichard, who recently replaced Paul Heyman as the red brand’s executive director and now oversees creative matters on both Raw and Friday Night SmackDown . Such a move would allow Prichard to focus exclusively on the blue brand’s programming, which he has been supervising since he replaced Eric Bischoff in the same role late last year.
McCarthy explained that while they weren’t able to corroborate the rumor, his other sources “can believe” it, based on how things have recently been playing out backstage. In addition, he noted that Prichard has been open about wanting a lighter workload and how he has been “struggling with the long hours.” This was touched on last month by his Something to Wrestle With co-host, Conrad Thompson, on the Wrestling Inc. Daily Podcast .
“He’s tired. He’s sleepy. He’s stressing. And I can only imagine the amount of curveballs that are coming his way, not just from running a show on Fox, which my goodness, what a huge undertaking that is. But now you’ve also got a show on USA, but as if that wasn’t enough, it’s also happening during a pandemic on a closed set.”
According to McCarthy, McMahon appears to be enjoying a better working relationship with his father, WWE chairman Vince McMahon, since his return to the company in 2016 after almost a decade away. The 50-year-old was last seen losing to Kevin Owens on Friday Night SmackDown’s debut on Fox in October 2019 before he reemerged on Raw earlier this month, launching the new “Raw Underground” concept — a weekly fight club segment with MMA-style bouts.
As noted, “Raw Underground” was based on a number of pro-wrestling/MMA “crossover ideas” the younger McMahon has had for close to a decade. So far, a number of red brand superstars have appeared on the segment, including Dolph Ziggler, Shayna Baszler, Nia Jax, and The Viking Raiders, per Daily DDT .
In his report, McCarthy added that Shane McMahon has also been pitching in behind the scenes for some time, sitting next to his father and helping produce most main roster shows. Furthermore, he was credited along with Heyman as having “played a key role” in setting up this year’s men’s Royal Rumble match.
