Report: Why Vince McMahon Replaced Paul Heyman As WWE Raw Executive Director Revealed

Last night, WWE suddenly announced Paul Heyman had been removed from his position as Executive Director of Monday Night Raw and replaced by Bruce Prichard.

In a short statement, the company wrote: "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."

Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter why McMahon replaced Heyman and revealed it ultimately came down to Raw's poor ratings. When Vince appointed Heyman as Raw Executive Director, the boss's understanding was that it would be a long-term play as Brock Lesnar's advocate wanted to create new stars on Monday nights which would take at least 18 months. This would affect ratings in the short term as it takes a while to get new stars over, but McMahon was initially prepared to accept this.

This all changed once the coronavirus pandemic began, however, and Vince grew increasingly worried about the declining viewership, and didn't think the Superstars Heyman was pushing on Raw were getting over with the audience at home. He, therefore, decided to remove Heyman from his position as Raw Executive Director and start afresh with Bruce Prichard.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has affected professional wrestling viewership across the board, but McMahon has previously doubted this is the case. He told investors during the Q1 2020 earnings call that the pandemic has not affected Raw's ratings and viewership was down because it takes a while for new Superstars to get over with the audience.