Report: Backstage Reaction To Vince McMahon's WWE SmackDown Appearance Revealed

Vince McMahon's opening segment on WWE SmackDown has not gone down well with WWE talent.

The 76-year-old opened SmackDown on June 17 as his Mr. McMahon character and was only in the ring for 40 seconds, during which he read out the WWE tagline of "Then. Now. Forever. Together." before he emphasised the "together" and welcomed the crowd in Minneapolis, Minnesota to SmackDown. One mic drop later and McMahon waltzed back up the ramp, ending the segment.

Fightful Select reported that the overall immediate reaction to the segment "ranged from confused to disappointed to 'enraged.'"

A top talent within WWE called the segment "tone deaf and embarrassing" and they believe it was simply done as a power move to reduce the impact of an investigation's findings. An individual who had worked with McMahon, meanwhile, was "enraged" by the segment and was "incredulous" watching it live.

A former top talent also said: "I'm happy it didn't last long, so I didn't have to sit through whatever bulls**t he was going to say. But it shows that he has no accountability, especially when something is directly his fault."

Furthermore, McMahon was reportedly in a good mood backstage ahead of SmackDown and the mantra of "business as usual" was reiterated constantly backstage. An individual within WWE also suggested McMahon's segment did not happen as originally planned.

It was announced on Friday that a Special Committee of the WWE Board are investigating misconduct allegations against Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis. McMahon has retained his responsibilities over WWE creative but he has stepped back as WWE CEO and Chairman while the investigation is ongoing. Stephanie McMahon has returned from her leave of absence to replace her father as Interim CEO and Chairwoman.