An altercation occurred at the HQ1 in Memphis where the Board of Directors had been called to convene for an emergency vote on the controversial Intergender Extreme Battle Royal Match for Immunity at the "Greatness Reborn" Pay-Per-View on January 6th, 2020. The Board had been instructed to appear for this special meeting at 2pm, Wednesday October 16th, 2019. The deliberations quickly devolved into a shout fest - according to anonymous sources with direct knowledge of the closed-door proceedings - between Chairman Mickey and Vice Chair Catherine. A stalemate ensued wherein Catherine repeatedly ordered a roll call and won a majority of support each time, but fell a handful of votes shy of the unanimous decision she needed to override Mickey's veto (a procedural rule installed two decades ago by Mickey to prevent the Board of Directors from ever overriding his authority when he had sole control).
Catherine reportedly refused to adjourn the meeting - insisting that the majority of the Board which supported her leave the meeting open until there was a resolution - and threatened to hold a vote in Mickey's absence should he and his Board loyalists have left prematurely. Mickey - in turn - suggested that he would rather live the rest of his life in that room before relinquishing his vote. Then, at 2am, Eastern Standard Time, a letter was rushed into the meeting. The President of the Board - Howard Knuckles, one of the loyalists to Mickey - read the letter, which reportedly came from the third shareholder possessing the same number of shares as Mickey and Catherine. The letter was - according to assurances made by the Board President - notarized and certified by a credible lawyer as being the legitimate correspondence from the mystery third party. After President Knuckles read the certification letter he proceeded to read the letter from the 1/3 owner of Mmouse Enterprises, which simply said:
"To the Board of Directors, the Chairman, and the Vice Chair,
I have been following the news about the controversial match in question since it first became a major story impacting our company. After careful consideration, I have decided to cast my vote in favor of the Vice Chair's proposal."
At that moment, Chairman Mickey reportedly exploded into a vicious, vulgar tirade aimed at the Board and his daughter. He exclaimed that the letter was a fraud and must not be permitted as representative of a vote on the measure in question. However, a lawyer representing the mystery client slapped a piece of paper on the table which highlighted a section of the by-laws which granted the "owner or owners" the exclusive right to vote by proxy. The lawyer then made it clear that he was officially serving as the proxy vote for his client. President Knuckles - reportedly sweating profusely from the pressure being applied on all sides - reluctantly allowed the action.
As a result, according to President Knuckles, the 48% of shares represented by Vice Chair Catherine's and the anonymous party's votes in addition to the majority of the shares represented by the Board voting with them constituted a majority of shareholder votes siding with Catherine Mouse's proposal to cancel the Intergender Extreme Battle Royal match and to furthermore ban all future Intergender matches in PWI. Mickey then - according to these sources - let out an unintelligible scream and then stormed out of the room.
The Vice Chair then proceeded to change the Extreme Battle Royal Match in the following way:
1) Ariel, Molly Holly, Maria, Layla, Ivory, Michelle McCool, Stephanie McMahon, Sable, and Sunny would be replaced in the match by Shinsuke Nakamura, Jon Moxley, Marty Scurll, Drew McIntyre, Samoa Joe, Kevin Owens, Ken Shamrock, and Taz.
2) The women removed from that match would instead have a separate match later that evening: a Gauntlet Match to determine the first number one contender for the PWI Women's Championship!
The Meeting was then subsequently adjourned by affirmation at 2:34am, October 17th, 2019.
In other news: The remaining two holdouts from the "Shadow Draft" finalized their contracts to the tune of 11 Million Dollars total. So, PWI welcomes Aleister Black and Zelina Vega to the roster, alongside Zelina's business partner, Andrade Cien Almas!!