JBL Thinks Vince McMahon Is Too Valuable For TKO Not To Bring Back

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, JBL talked about where he believes Vince McMahon could realistically slot back in at TKO — ruling out a return to creative or a run at Nick Khan’s job, and making the case for an advisory or board role instead. You can check out his comments below:

On the fit:

“A board member is what I think he’d fit in the most. Look, he’s not going to replace Nick Khan. Nick Khan is one of the best negotiators I’ve ever seen in my life. Vince brought Nick in. That guy can negotiate anything — these billion-dollar contracts that have come up. Nick Khan is a freaking rainmaker, and there’s no reason to replace a rainmaker even with another rainmaker, so I don’t think that’s even in the cards. As far as Triple H, I don’t think that is either. Vince is not going to be part of creative. I think he would run creative if maybe you asked him to, but I don’t think he’d be part of creative. Maybe he gives some insight here and there, but he is such an overwhelming personality. Vince has always been the boss, and for him to come in — I just don’t see how he can play that well with others as somebody that’s underneath somebody.”

On a past McMahon idea:

“Now, as far as an overall perspective — would he work with Ari and say, here’s what we can do, here’s our global perspective? As a person that could broker deals with the Middle East, with Asia, with people that would build a global company? I think that’s where Vince fits in perfectly. Vince had this idea from the ’90s. He had an idea to have different territories on different continents — one down in South America, one in Asia, one in Europe, one in Australia — and have this global company. I think that’s kind of what you’re seeing. That’s certainly what you saw with AAA, and it’s been a phenomenal buy.”

On a role that never becomes public:

“You might not even put him on the board. You might create a spot there for him that is not a public spot. If you’ve got a resource like Vince McMahon, I think if you don’t try to use that, that’s crazy. Here’s a guy who took a Northeast regional territory and turned it into a global power. Here’s a guy who took a company he bought from his father for around a million dollars and sold it for $9.3 billion. That guy did something in wrestling nobody else could do, and everybody else was trying to do. If I’m the CEO, if I’m the CFO, if I’m on the board, I want his input. I want his advice.”

On McMahon being a big picture guy:

“Vince sees big pictures. I’ve been in a lot of meetings, and Vince is the one guy who would ask questions — it’s kind of like a great engineer compared to a good engineer. A good engineer will build something and you go, man, how do you do that? A great engineer will build it and you go, well, I could have done that, because it’s so simple. Vince could boil things down to simplicity. He would ask questions in meetings, and when he asked them you’d go, why didn’t I ask that? That’s the question. People go around the table, and Vince would always pause a little bit, and then he’d ask the question. Somehow he always cut through all of it. That’s too valuable a resource for any company to not bring him in.”

On McMahon bringing value:

“Do you put him in a public role like a board member or some officer? I don’t know. There’s a lot of baggage that comes with Vince too. Or do you just bring him in as an advisor, because he is a majority shareholder in the company, and use him that way? Either way, I think he’s a valuable resource to have.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle With an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.