10 People Most Likely To Succeed Vince McMahon As WWE Owner Ranked

2. Stephanie McMahon

Vince McMahon Jeff Shell Bob Chapek Nick Khan Tony Khan Triple H Stephanie McMahon Paul Levesque Shane McMahon Linda McMahon
WWE

The Billion Dollar Princess, Stephanie McMahon has blossomed into the sort of WWE role many had previously earmarked for Shane McMahon.

Rather than Shane, it was Stephanie who became heavily involved in the day-to-day running of WWE, progressing from one of the company's old catalogue models, to receptionist, to account executive, to working on the creative team, to running the creative team, to becoming Executive Vice President, to her current position as Chief Brand Officer. All jobs, of course, that McMahon held while often being an on-screen talent on WWE programming.

Where Shane decided to explore pastures new and try his hand in other industries, Stephanie instead doubled-down and put all of her attention and focus on climbing the WWE ladder and positioning herself as next in line for whenever the time comes when Vince isn't running the show.

From a public perception standpoint, Stephanie - or even the combination of Stephanie and Paul Levesque - seemed the nailed-on successor to the WWE throne. That was, of course, until August 2020 shook things up in a major, major way...

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.