Shane McMahon Calls Leaving the WWE "Brutal"

Rising high up the executive ranks, McMahon was seen as a potential successor to his father. There was only one problem. "He wasn't going anywhere," he said and laughed.

As a favor to a friend, McMahon took a meeting with Marc Urbach, who was chief financial officer of what was then known as China Broadband Inc. The company had just secured a license to operate in China and Urbach, who grew up as a fan of the WWE, wanted to pick McMahon's brains about the region. McMahon had spent a lot of time schmoozing government officials to get WWE content inside the country.

"At first I didn't believe them," McMahon said when he was told the company had a green light to set up shop in China. "Getting the license is the hardest thing in the world." He did his due diligence, even flying to China to visit the company's offices there.

Initially, McMahon was approached about joining China Broadband Inc.'s board of directors. The more time he spent studying the company, the more intrigued he became. He joined the company in late 2009 as its chairman and chief executive and invested $4 million.

"It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make," McMahon said of his leaving WWE to strike out on his own. "I didn't want to wake up when I was 70 and say, 'I should have done that.'" Telling his father he wanted to leave was "brutal" and now, almost two years later, there remains some residual tension. "It's still hard," he said....More?

source: latimes.com