Vince McMahon’s dramatic return to WWE certainly has the wrestling world talking. Every wrestling personality has something to say about it. Now, it is evident that the chatter caused by McMahon’s comeback has stretched even beyond the wrestling business.
Dawn Pappas, WWE’s former Media Relations Manager for Canada, spent three years in the company between 2004 and 2007. During that time, she had frequent run-ins with Vince McMahon, of which she has several stories to tell.
Former WWE PR Employee Comments On Vince McMahon
Appearing on the latest edition of the “Chosen Life Podcast,” Dawn Pappas spoke about her time in the wrestling business. While on the topic of Vince McMahon, Dawn had the following to say.
“Vince is likely exactly what you think Vince is like. That’s not fair, he’s not (the Vince McMahon character). He’s very calculating, he’s very smart, he’s very direct. I didn’t have a lot of direct interaction with Vince, but there was one interview that he was doing for Sportsnet or TSN, and there had been a lot of steroid controversy at the time.”
“I was in the green room with him before the interview and I said, ‘I have the list of questions.’ He said, ‘Put it away.’ ‘You sure? Bret. Steroids.’ ‘Put it away.’ I had a lot of respect for somebody who was willing to go into a live interview, he knows his shit, he knows his positions because he truly embodies that company.”
“I think, and this is just me talking, he failed wrestling by not taking the threat of MMA seriously, and I say this as someone who came from an industry that got hammered by Napster. I came from music and they weren’t taking streaming seriously, and that did a lot of damage to the music industry. When I went to WWE and I started seeing the numbers dropping, ‘oh, we’re losing our viewership.’ Okay, what are we doing about it? My first thought was, we should all be going to Vegas and a MMA event and see what they’re doing and comparing it to what we’re doing.”
“WWE and Vince’s world, nobody wants to hear that. Vince is going to do what Vince is going to do and he doesn’t want to know, think, or see anything else going on outside. That was the impression I got. To hear Hunter [Triple H] has been doing a great job with the company, I love that because I love him, he’s a super smart guy. I liked him and have a lot of respect for him. I’m not surprised that Vince can’t take a seat. It’s his life and blood.”
On January 5th, Vince McMahon elected himself back onto the WWE’s Board of Directors to oversee the sale of the company.
H/T Fightful