WWE Rumors - Vince McMahon has become very private; another veteran has taken backstage control of SmackDown 

Vince McMahon has been religiously hands-on with running WWE since the day he took control of the company from his father in 1982. The boss is known to be very particular about having his stamp of approval on everything that goes up on TV and he's rarely missed a TV show for decades.

However, the situation backstage could be changing if Fightful's latest report is to be believed.

Fightful was given a tip from their sources that Vince McMahon's attendance isn't how it used to be.

McMahon was not present that often on SmackDown between Thanksgiving and the episode on February 5th. It was revealed that Executive Director Bruce Prichard has taken up the all-important role of overseeing the show at Gorilla Position on the Blue Brand.

The report, however, didn't reveal the extent of Prichard's influence on the final product.

Vince McMahon has been 'exceptionally private' lately and has been on RAW 'half the time' in the recent past.

Over on Raw, it was noted that Vince McMahon was around "approximately half the time." Outside of that, McMahon is said to have been exceptionally private of late. This is still a far cry from decades past when McMahon would almost never miss an episode of WWE Raw if he could help it.

With the XFL reboot finally up and running, Vince McMahon has a lot of extra duties to take care of in addition to making sure that the WWE continues to do smooth business.

The WWE CEO will surely spend more time working behind the scenes in the WWE as the company heads towards WrestleMania 36.

As reported earlier by Sportskeeda's Tom Colohue, while Vince McMahon may never completely relinquish control of the WWE, Shane McMahon is next in line to take over from his father and he's already taken up major roles backstage, including being a producer at the Royal Rumble.

With McMahon making lesser appearances, we could expect Shane McMahon, the Executive Directors, and other backstage producers to continue to run the show.