If you didn’t know this, I don’t know what to tell you. Wade Keller of PWTorch interviewed former WWE Creative Team member John Piermarini for the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. During the show, Piermarini revealed that Vince McMahon only got on the women band wagon because it made business sense.
After talking about how Vince saw the women on the roster, (which hint, wasn’t great), Wade Keller than directed the line of questioning to the evolution of the WWE’s women. Keller starts off by asking the question to which Piermarini replies.
Wade Keller: Does this seem like with Evolution on Sunday and with what’s going on with Ronda Rousey that it’s purely economic?
John: Yep
Wade Keller: Or is there some semblance that we’re a maturing corporation?
John: No. I’m not there to tell you if that’s the case, but sometimes you just have to look at the writing on the wall and you have to look at the timing. They want to say that, you know, whatever the promo was that Stephanie [McMahon] cut where it’s all about timing and all about kicking down doors. WWE did none of that. This was all happening outside their world and then they saw a way to capitalize on it. It’s how they do all of their business. For them to take any credit for it, it’s them lying to themselves and maybe they do feel like they should get credit for it and maybe because they’re the ones trying as hard as they can to be out there and pushing that like they do with everything else that charity and all that. There’s probably people that do a lot more with some of the things they’re involved with, but WWE is not pushing it, but WWE will get credit for it because they’re the ones every week that say, ‘Hey, look what we’re doing.’ I think that it’s all because they saw an opportunity and they’re capitalizing on it. I don’t think there was ever a conversation, don’t get me wrong – I’m sure someone like Stephanie or maybe even Triple H, it’s no different than when we were there and some of us were pushing for the women. You just had to get that right person there to do it, but I think that even if Stephanie was a big proponent for it all this time, they weren’t – they were giving up the fight against Vince and I think at some point Vince thought, ‘Hey look at all these things happening.’ I’m sure he had no idea of who Ronda Rousey was at the time she was doing all that and I think he finally saw that as a way to – and maybe it was the way they convinced him – but, a way for us to make money and he finally said, ‘OK, let’s go with it.’ And to be honest, it was sorta slow. It’s not like they just went all in and said, ‘Hey, we’re giving them a pay-per-view and have them headline.’ It was all very very slow. They definitely tested it before they went all in on it.
While some of what he says is opinion based, it’s not that far off from the truth one could imagine. With the number of women who have spoken out, criticized and even did interviews on the subject of Vince’s views on women; it’s not at all out of the realm of possibility.