On December 12 it
was reported that AEW had hired Michael Mansury to be the Senior Vice President & Co-Executive Producer. Mansury previously served as the Vice President of Global Television Production for WWE, but left the company in 2020. Mansury was hired by WWE in 2009.
Speaking to
Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Mansury detailed his exit from WWE.
"I got to a certain point in my career there where I wasn't really being developed any further. My schedule was pretty wild, those last six months before I left. Do Raw on Mondays, Tuesday I would fly from anywhere to LA to do Backstage, take a red eye to Orlando on Tuesday nights, sleep on the plane, go do NXT, which at that point had gone live on USA, work office hours on Thursday, fly back to New York with Triple H on Wednesday night, Thursday is office hours and prepping for everything on Friday with SmackDown, Saturday maybe a down day, and Sunday it seemed like we had a pay-per-view every week. It was a lot. I didn't mind it, but I mean more so in terms of my professional development. It was always inferred, and maybe at some point maybe even formalized that should anything happen if he decided to retire, I was going to be the successor to Kevin Dunn on the TV side. I, at that point, was self-aware enough to know that I couldn't do it. Not in the sense that I couldn't do the shows, I could do Raw and SmackDown in my sleep, pay-per-views, no problem. I could do it, but more so the business end, the non-TV side of what that role is. There is more to what Kevin does than just sit in a truck and line produce Raw, SmackDown, whatever it is. I had grown tired of hearing, 'We can't figure out what to do with you until we know what Kevin's future is.' My review was always, 'You're doing a great job, you're killing it, we don't really know what to do until we get an understanding of what Kevin's future is,'" recalled Mansury.
"I knew there was more I was capable of, but I had already excelled in everything they had allowed me to do. I was looking for that new challenge, even if it was something outside of the scope of what people would define as my potential, it would have been nice to be able to spread my wings a little and take on a new challenge. Once I realized I was in the lane that I was in and the path to the destination wasn't going to change, or even progress that much, I knew it was time to make a change."
Mansury continued, revealing that he made the decision to leave in March, just before the pandemic shut things down.
"I think it was the first Raw of March, we were in Brooklyn. My manager at the time was sitting next to me and I said, 'I'd like to talk to you and KD, I'm tapped out, I'm done,'" he said.
The pandemic forced WWE to move all production to Orlando and air shows from the Performance Center. Mansury helped with the first show, and was given an opportunity to stick around given the uncertain future of the world.
"I had gone back to up to Stamford and they offered me an opportunity to rescind my resignation, and I was beyond appreciative of it, but I told them, 'I appreciate it, I know we're headed towards uncertain times, but if I don't do this, I'm never going to do it. I need to,'" he said.
After leaving WWE, Mansury began working with Pat McAfee on his show. Mansury and McAfee connected through McAfee doing kick-off shows with WWE. He then moved on to ONE MMA, but revealed he had talks with AEW before joining ONE.
"At the time, I had started having talks with people at AEW, but it wasn't the right time for either of us. I don't know if I was ready to get into wrestling and they had a pretty solid crew. Keith Mitchell was still in the game, I don't think they knew Keith was going to wind up retiring a couple of months later. A lot of folks on the AEW side that we knew from WWE had spoken to Tony a lot and talked to me about coming down and checking things out and saying hello. Ultimately, ONE was the new home," he said.
Mitchell ended up retiring at the end of 2021. Mansury moved to Singapore to begin working with ONE Championship. Before Thanksgiving, he moved back to the United States after talks with AEW.
When asked why he decided to return to wrestling, Mansury said,
"Unfinished business. There was definitely unfinished business in a, I don't know that I left wrestling feeling fulfilled. I think when I left WWE, I was burnt out and frustrated. Even after I left WWE, I left and jumped right into Pat's show, but we were also in the middle of a global pandemic, and you didn't really have time to process that I just left a place that I had spent a third of life working in, where I grew up as a man. I hadn't had time to process that. Nor were the situations going on in life in a place for me to process that. It started to dawn on me that there was still a lot more that I've yet to accomplish. Around the summer, I started talks again with AEW. A few folks had reached out, shoutout to [AEW Chief Legal officer] Megha (Parekh). Megha and Tony (Khan) were pretty inviting right from jump street. 'We have an opportunity here, we feel the company is at the threshold of that next level and next iteration of what AEW is in establishing our identity and everything else in between.' They wanted to gauge my interest and see if I would be interested in coming along for the ride. It was a pretty long process, and at that point, I said I was interested for sure, but we were getting ready to launch ONE on Prime Video and I wanted to give that the focus it deserved. It occupied a lot of my thoughts. We got to the point, ultimately, as conversations progressed, we were literally packing up our bags to head to the US and going back and forth as to what this role would be, what I would do. We came to an accord and here I am."
Renee then asked Mansury what his goals were for AEW.
"I want to contribute," he stated.
"I want to help build something special. That's what AEW is and what AEW has been since its inception. It's a special place. The energy and the vibe is pretty infectious. I was back at Full Gear, days after stepping off the plane from Singapore, and I'm backstage with you, seeing the energy and excitement the talent have about the product and the company, but also the vibe and atmosphere. Everyone has been unbelievably welcoming, even on my side of the fence. I'm walking into a production team where, some of these folks have been together since WCW. I'm walking into a well-established team already, I am just hoping to be able to add whatever they feel I can bring to the table and what I know I can bring to the table. I want to do it all. I know it sounds generic and all-encompassing, but it's true, I want to do it all. I really believe in AEW, the product, the talent, the vision. Any sort of entity that is growing, sometimes you need to bring in an ingredient from the outside to help you. I'm not saying I'm necessarily going to elevate AEW to the next level, that would be very egotistical to say. You talk about NXT, I have that same feeling in that, there is so much out there to work with and everything is so raw and just waiting for folks to apply the right touches or to help these men and women figure out what are the pieces we need to accentuate or the pieces we need to tweak."
Renee followed up and asked Mansury if he's noticed any differences between AEW and WWE.
"It's only been a week, but if I had my observation glasses on, a lot of how AEW is brought together is very reminiscent of legitimate sport; boxing, MMA, baseball. The way the production crew approaches it, it's very put together like sport. Coming from [ONE], it's a nice fit for me to slide right in and get my hands dirty with the team. Creatively, I love seeing the talent being so unbelievably collaborative. I'm not saying this as a negative difference between WWE or AEW, it's something that both have, but being removed from wrestling the last couple of years, to come back and see a lot of...even the more established names on the roster, to see how much they are unleashing their creative prowess, not just for themselves, but for the other folks on the team, has been really cool to see. We're getting ready to kind of, and this was already in the works before I arrived, but there is a whole new presentation planned for what the show is going to look like starting next year. There is a lot of cool stuff on the horizon that makes this a very exciting time. That itch that I've had for the last two and a half to three years is about to be (scratched)," he said.
Mansury said he's looking forward to working with the likes of Jade Cargill, Ricky Starks, MJF, and working again with FTR (Dax Harwood & Cash Wheeler). He said he's looking forward to working with everyone as he didn't want to exclude anyone. He and Renee also praised Lexy Nair, feeling she has untapped potential.
Mansury closed by giving his big goal for AEW,
"I miss the unpredictable nature of live TV. I feel that's been something that has been missing for a long time because, for a while, there was really nobody for WWE, and now here comes this strong powerhouse in AEW that has become a viable place for people to work. The other thing, the two big things, you need is characters. You need characters and story. When you have characters and storylines that people are invested in, that's the stuff that is going to resonate with your fanbase. Throw in some cool matches in-between and watch people do some cool shit, but without story and characters, how are we using those elements to distinguish a roster that is stacked with talented men and women from left to right? To be able to offer a new way to present that or tweak what we've been doing, and hopefully create moments that are going to stand out in fans' minds so that water cooler talk that everyone is always chasing. To be able to bring that back to make wrestling the destination again, that's the goal."
Michael Mansury talks joining AEW and much more.
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