Vince McMahon & Several Other Major Names Absent From WWE Raw

This week's Raw was seemingly run on skeleton staff.

Dec 28, 2021 December 28th, 2021

With last night's WWE Raw now in the books, several key members of company management were missing from this most recent red brand offering.

As per PWInsider and Ringside News, Vince McMahon, Bruce Prichard, Kevin Dunn, Adam Pearce and Michael 'PS' Hayes were all absent from last night's WWE Day 1 go-home episode of Raw. In addition to this, several producers were also missing from this week's Raw due to ongoing issues with COVID-19.

There's no word on why exactly these names weren't in Detroit for Raw, although the belief is that lead writer Ed Koskey and John Laurinaitis were tasked with overseeing last night's show. In Prichard's case, he's reportedly been absent from several recent TV tapings, with Koskey filling in for Bruce when required.

This all comes hot on the heels of plentiful WWE superstars missing the company's big Boxing Day show from Madison Square Garden. Seth Rollins took to Twitter to confirm that he has tested positive for COVID-19, with other notable absences from that MSG show being WWE Champion Big E, Raw Women's Champion Becky Lynch, and Bianca Belair.

Additionally, this week has also brought word that WWE is now no longer testing talent - which is a change to the organisation's previous twice-weekly test.

Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

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.

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