Tag: Vince McMahon

According to a comprehensive look at his life after WWE by NBC News, Vince McMahon is spending his time taking trips to Turks and Caicos and Italy, eating at his favorite New York City spots and chatting with Donald Trump.

One thing he’s not doing? Talking to anyone in a position of authority in WWE, including Triple H.

McMahon still has an office at WWE headquarters in Stamford, Conn., which the sources quoted for the article say is “unoccupied but otherwise intact.” But he hasn’t used it since he resigned from TKO, the company formed by the merger of WWE and UFC under the auspices of Endeavor, in January.

It might not be surprising to learn that McMahon hasn’t spoken with Endeavor’s leadership. Reports in early February suggested that Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and COO and president Mark Shapiro both told McMahon it would be in the best interest of the company if he resigned in the wake of the explosive allegations made in the Janel Grant sex trafficking lawsuit.

What may be more difficult for anyone who has followed WWE for any length of time to believe is that McMahon isn’t trying to pull any strings from a distance — something he’s done before. Not so this time, according to NBC’s sources.

That also means McMahon hasn’t talked to his son-in-law, WWE creative chief and former superstar Paul “Triple H” Levesque, or daughter, Stephanie McMahon-Levesque, regarding company matters, sources said.

That’s probably a big factor in the tone of most of the people NBC talked to for their piece, who feel that McMahon is gone for good this time. Reporting from a number of outlets has suggested that’s the case, but given his perseverance in the face of previous scandals, it’s become one of those “seeing is believing” deals.

For now, at least, that’s what people close to McMahon are indeed seeing.

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Two of the unnamed figures in Janel Grant’s sex trafficking lawsuit against Vince McMahon have reportedly been identified.

Front Office Sports published an article Monday identifying WWE president Nick Khan and COO Brad Blum as two of the unnamed executives in the lawsuit who helped facilitate the working environment within which Grant alleges McMahon sexually abused her alone and with others.

The executives are identified within the lawsuit simply as Corporate Officer No. 1 and Corporate Officer No. 2. Reporters Tim Marchman, formerly of Vice, John Pollock of Post Wrestling, and Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, say they were able to identify Khan and Blum by “cross-checking the details of the suit against publicly available records like online résumés and corporate filings, as well as information provided by sources familiar with WWE.”

The journalists then received confirmation from Grant’s lawyer Ann Callis that “these names are correct.”

While Front Office Sports notes that neither Khan nor Blum are accused of playing an active role in the abuse Grant claims occurred at McMahon’s hands, their alleged indifference to his behavior would still paint WWE as a place where an unsafe work environment could be allowed to fester at the whims of its former top executive.

WWE provided a statement to the outlet denying that Khan and Blum had any knowledge of the accusations made against McMahon in Grant’s lawsuit:

WWE takes Ms. Grant’s allegations very seriously and has no tolerance for any physical abuse or unwanted physical contact. Neither Nick Khan nor Brad Blum, prior to the lawsuit being filed on January 25, 2024, were aware of any allegation by Ms. Grant that she was the victim of abuse or unwanted physical contact; nor does the complaint allege that either had knowledge of such.

Callis released a statement on behalf of Grant in January stating that she hoped “any doors of secrecy have been blown off their hinges and that fresh air fills the headquarters.” The leadership of TKO, the entity created by the merger of WWE and UFC, were undoubtedly hoping that this would be the case once McMahon resigned amid the fallout from the suit.

The prospect that Khan may have known more than he let on or looked the other way while McMahon committed acts of sexual abuse casts some doubt about that outlook. If nothing else, this latest report suggests a wider range of cultural rot than may have been originally assumed, one that may require more careful investigation and self-reflection for TKO to legitimately cut out.

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Vince McMahon still owns a decent chunk of TKO, the company formed last year by the merger of WWE and UFC. But he has no role in its operation and never will again.

That’s according to someone who would know, TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro. The longtime media executive spoke today at the Morgan Stanley 2024 Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on topics like the deal to move Raw to Netflix starting in 2025 and how TKO plans to “go to town” with sponsors around the arena and on the ring for WWE shows.

When the talk turned to McMahon, Shapiro said he still owns part of the company but won’t ever be part of its operation again (via Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics).

Shapiro says TKO did not participate in Vince McMahon's most recent stock sale. He roughly has 8.5%. We don't talk to him, we don't know his motives, his plans, his timelines. He doesn't work for the company. He doesn't come into the offices. He's not coming back to the company.

— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) March 6, 2024

McMahon resigned on Jan. 26 from his positions as executive chairman and member of the board of directors of TKO. It was heavily reported in the following weeks that TKO CEO Ari Emanuel (who was publicly supportive of McMahon when the merger first took place) and Shapiro told McMahon it was the right thing to do in the wake of the explosive Janel Grant sex trafficking lawsuit filed in January.

The fear among many was that McMahon would simply lie low for a bit and then engineer a return as he did when his first sexual abuse scandal hit in the summer of 2022. Thing have changed substantially in the WWE power structure since then, however, and Shapiro’s comments make it clear that TKO doesn’t envision McMahon as part of its future.

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(This story was originally published on USATODAY.com)

The fallout from the Vince McMahon lawsuit continues.

In January, a bombshell lawsuit was filed against the founder of WWE, as former employee Janel Grant alleged McMahon took part in sex trafficking and put her through sexual acts that were done with “extreme cruelty and degradation.” WWE’s former head of talent relations John Laurinaitis was also named in the suit.

Since then, McMahon has stepped down from his position within the company and there’s been several developments into the lawsuit, such as what transpired during McMahon’s time running the sports entertainment company, and several star wrestlers have commented on the case.

Here are the latest details on Vince McMahon and the lawsuit filed by Grant:

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Vince McMahon still has stock, ‘control’ in TKO Holdings Group

Despite stepping down from his position as executive chairman and board member of TKO Group Holdings, McMahon still owns stock in the company, according to executive Mark Shapiro. He said in the company’s fourth quarter earnings call it is not dictating what he plans to do with the stock.

“He’ll do whatever he’s going to do, and we’re all on the sideline,” Shapiro said. “We’ll have a look, we’ll see. We have no idea on timing. We’re not having any discussion with him. He’s given us no point of view on his motive or his plans to sell or not sell, or if he does, how much. So, we’re going to wait around and find out just like you.”

In its filings to the SEC, TKO also said McMahon “controls a significant portion of the voting power of the issued and outstanding shares of the company’s common stock.” The company also said McMahon plans to reimburse the company the amount of money it spent on a special committee to investigate allegations made against McMahon. By the end 2023, McMahon had reimbursed the company $5.8 million.

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Randy Orton, John Cena speak out on lawsuit

Two of WWE’s biggest stars this century publicly spoke about the lawsuit in Randy Orton and John Cena.

Orton told Sports Illustrated he wouldn’t be where he is without McMahon, but didn’t mince any words about how much it “hurts” reading the allegations.

“I’ve got to say this; I wouldn’t be where I am without Vince McMahon taking a chance on me a handful of times,” he said. “I would not be where I am today without Vince McMahon. But, (expletive) I’m reading this (expletive). What you’ve seen and read, I’ve seen and read. As far as commenting on that, it (expletive) hurts my heart. It hurts my heart.”

Cena took a different approach when asked about it on “The Howard Stern Show.” He said he would support McMahon through the allegations as he is going to “love the person I love, be their friend.”

“I’ve openly said, I love (McMahon), I have a great relationship with the guy, and that’s that. It’s largely my construct of operating with honesty and communication. Those are strong leads to handling any problem or achievement. The whole thing is super unfortunate and it sucks. It deals with an individual I love and an entity I love. I want everyone to have the experience that I have,” Cena said. “Not only do I tell a friend that I love them, but I switch to the entity and say, ‘How can I help?'”

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Seth Rollins: ‘It’s a disgusting situation’

Current World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins addressed the lawsuit while speaking with CBS Sports Radio at Super Bowl 58 radio row.

“It’s awful, it’s terrible. I hate it, it’s a disgusting situation,” Rollins said. But we’re so far removed from it, you know? When we get to work, it’s like ‘How do we make this the best possible show we can?”

Rollins added it’s something that he wishes he could’ve done something about.

“You feel terrible and you wish could have seen it or done something, this and that,” he saidsaid. “But at the end of the day, your job is your job, and that’s what we do. We show up and we try to give the people to pay the tickets to come in the best possible show we can. That’s kind of our department.”

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Feds investigating Vince McMahon sex-trafficking allegations

A report by the Wall Street Journal said federal prosecutors are investigating sexual assault and sex trafficking allegations against McMahon.

According to the Wall Street Journal, federal agents searched McMahon’s phone last year looking for documents related to any allegation of “rape, sex trafficking, sexual assault, commercial sex transaction, harassment or discrimination” against current or former WWE employees.

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Rape reported by late-WWE star resurfaces

Since the news of the lawsuit, other cases involving WWE and McMahon have resurfaced, including the alleged rape of the late Ashley Massaro.

In 2006, Massaro said that she was raped by someone representing himself as a U.S. Army doctor while WWE was doing a tour in 2006. In a sworn affidavit her lawyer released in 2019, Massaro said WWE executives like McMahon and Laurinaitus knew about the reported rape and told the star not to release any details about it.

Laurinaitus’ lawyer Edward Brennan told VICE any allegations Laurinaitus helped cover up the alleged rape “is an outright lie,” but did admit WWE executives knew about the allegations.

“Johnny, like most upper level management at sometime became aware of the allegations and ensured all proper WWE protocols were followed, including privacy for the alleged victim. We object to the use of the term cover up as no such plan or plot ever took place to hide or assist in the alleged rape,” Brennan told the outlet.

Massaro was part of a 2016 lawsuit in which several former wrestlers sued McMahon and WWE, seeking damages related to the effects of traumatic brain injuries they said they suffered while wrestling. Massaro died by suicide in 2019 at the age of 39.

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Attorney: John Laurinaitis is a victim

Despite being named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit, an attorney for John Laurinaitis told VICE his client is a victim in the situation, and appeared to corroborate the claims made against McMahon.

“Mr. Laurinaitis denies the allegations in the misguided complaint and will be vigorously defending these charges in court, not the media,” lawyer Edward Brennan told the outet. “Like the Plaintiff, Mr. Laurinaitis is a victim in this case, not a predator. The truth will come out.

“Read the allegations. Read the Federal Statute. Power, control, employment supervisory capacity, dictatorial sexual demands with repercussions if not met. Count how many times in the complaint Vince exerts control over both of them.”

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Triple H, Cody Rhodes make WWE’s first comments on Vince McMahon lawsuit

The news of the lawsuit came just days before the 2024 Royal Rumble premium live event, one of the major pay-per-views for WWE.

After the Royal Rumble, reporters asked men’s Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes about the lawsuit, marking the first time someone in WWE would be publicly commenting on the allegations. Rhodes said he and other WWE stars found out about the news as it broke. He agreed with a reporter that the situation casts a “dark cloud” over the company, but he isn’t sure what’s next for McMahon and WWE.

“As far as TKO, Nick Khan and the board, clearly (they) took it very seriously (and) acted immediately,” Rhodes said. “Looking at the future, I don’t know the answer to that.”

WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque then spoke with the media, but he deflected any question asked by the media by choosing to focus on the positives in the company, like it signing a $5 billion deal with Netflix.

“I choose to focus on the positive and yes, there’s a negative but I want to focus on that and just keep it to that,” Levesque said.

“I’ll go back to what I said before. This is an amazing week for us, and just at this point, I don’t even want to get bogged down in the negatives of it,” he added. “I just want to focus on the positives and where we’re going and we’re at the most exciting time of the year for us.”

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Vince McMahon resigns from TKO Group Holdings

One day after the news of the lawsuit, McMahon resigned as executive chairman and board member of TKO Group Holdings, parent company of WWE.

“I intend to vigorously defend myself against these baseless accusations, and look forward to clearing my name,” McMahon said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports announcing his departure. “However, out of respect for the WWE Universe, the extraordinary TKO business and its board members and shareholders, partners and constituents, and all of the employees and Superstars who helped make WWE into the global leader it is today, I have decided to resign from my executive chairmanship and the TKO board of directors, effective immediately.”

McMahon had served as executive chairman of TKO Group Holdings, the company that owns WWE along with the UFC. He made a public appearance with the company just days before when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was appointed as a board member for the company, and he rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. TKO had previously said McMahon had no part in the day-to-day operations of WWE.

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Vince McMahon denies allegations

After the lawsuit was revealed, a spokesperson for McMahon released the following statement:

“This lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and a vindictive distortion of the truth. He will vigorously defend himself,” the spokesperson said.

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Janel Grant files lawsuit against Vince McMahon, WWE

Grant’s lawsuit filed in Connecticut was first reported on Jan. 25. In the suit, Grant said McMahon made her sign a non-disclosure agreement about their relationship for an agreed amount of $3 million. However, she alleges she never received full payment from McMahon, and wants to void the agreement with the lawsuit.

Grant detailed her experiences with McMahon, which began when she was hired by WWE in 2019. During her employment, Grant said she was forced into a sexual relationship with McMahon, and he would share explicit photos, videos and details of her to other WWE employees, as well as coerce her into having sexual relations with other WWE staffers, including WWE’s former head of talent relations John Laurinaitis, who is also named in the suit.

In May 2020, the lawsuit states McMahon began to recruit other men and force Grant into sex trafficking. Text messages allegedly from McMahon show he told Grant “i’m the only one who owns U and controls who I want to (expletive) U.”

These allegations came nearly two years after reports McMahon paid upwards of $12 million to four women in a 16-year span to quiet allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity. After the reports of payment, McMahon retired as CEO and chairman of WWE and he was subpoenaed by federal agents in August regarding the payments.

Even with Vince McMahon now gone from WWE after resigning his position as executive chairman of TKO last month, it’s clear that additional information about the true scope and duration of his alleged sexual abuse of former female employees is going to continue to emerge as long as people are going to keep digging.

One of those with a proverbial shovel is Tim Marchman of VICE News. Earlier this week, Marchman published an article dispelling the idea that WWE was unaware of a claim by the late Ashley Massaro that she was raped while on a Kuwait military base in 2006 and advised not to discuss it for the sake of WWE’s work with the military.

In a follow-up today, Marchman obtained a previously unpublished statement used by Massaro’s lawyers to create sworn affidavits for a lawsuit for former wrestlers who claimed they suffered traumatic brain injuries while performing for WWE.

The statement was never used for that lawsuit because it was felt to be irrelevant to those specific claims, but it does shed new light on Massaro’s alleged treatment by McMahon: specifically, that he made unwanted sexual advances toward Massaro, pressured her into situations that made her feel uncomfortable, and that he took personal creative control over her character when rebuffed with the idea that he would ruin Massaro’s career.

Part of the statement also names former WWE exec Kevin Dunn and current creative team member Michael Hayes as people who knew about McMahon’s behavior and were dismissive or unhelpful to Massaro.

On one of these occasions, Vince was attempting to get me alone with him in his hotel room late at night and I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. He began calling the hotel room phone and my cell phone nonstop. I called Kevin Dunn to explain the situation and he said I should tell Vince I was not feeling well and would see him on TV the next day, so I did. Immediately after that night, Vince started writing my promos for me. Vince does not write promos for female wrestlers—that is the job of the creative department—and he certainly wouldn’t have, under any normal circumstances, written a promo for me. But he did, and the promos were written with the clear intention of ruining my career. I brought the first script Vince wrote for me to the WWE employee in charge of Creative at the time, Michael Hayes, and he said, ‘you’re not saying this, who the [expletive] wrote this?’ and I told him that Vince did. He said, ‘Well kid, these are the breaks,’ meaning that Vince wanted to end my career and destroy my reputation on my way out.

Dunn was a well-known confidant of McMahon and instrumental in the TV production aspects of WWE for years. He left the company at the end of 2023. Hayes continues to be part of the creative team under Paul “Triple H” Levesque.

Massaro first joined WWE after winning the 2005 Raw Diva Search, and was elevated to a wrestling role quickly despite her lack of experience. She was also known from her participation on the “Survivor: China” reality series in 2007 and for appearing on the cover of “Playboy” magazine that same year — an achievement she claimed made McMahon take more interest in her than before.

Massaro later became a radio DJ, but was found unresponsive at her home in Smithtown, New York, on May 16, 2019, and later pronounced dead at the hospital after being transported by paramedics. Though the cause of her death was never officially revealed by the medical examiner in Suffolk County, it was believed to be suicide.

Despite the horrifying allegations in Janel Grant’s sex trafficking lawsuit against Vince McMahon that came to light last month, his history suggests he would have remained in place, perhaps even defiant.

Instead, he stepped down as executive chairman of TKO, the company made up of WWE and UFC, just a few days later.

A new article by The Hollywood Reporter sheds more light on McMahon’s departure from the company, suggesting it was a decision made by those above him — an extra layer of oversight he did not have when WWE was its own entity.

Those concerns culminated the evening of Jan. 26, when Emanuel and TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro called McMahon and told him it would be in the best interest of the company for him to resign. He agreed, and submitted his resignation. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or WWE,” WWE president Nick Khan wrote in a memo to staff at 8:30 p.m. that evening, announcing McMahon’s resignation to employees.

In addition, THR’s piece confirms that economic considerations were a big factor. Slim Jim, one of WWE’s biggest sponsors, briefly backed out of its activations at Royal Rumble before returning to the fold after McMahon resigned. The Netflix deal to carry Raw in the U.S. and much of WWE’s content in international markets also “could have been put in jeopardy” had Grant’s lawsuit been filed earlier.

McMahon also has his own financial well-being to consider. Since he still owns roughly 10% of the shares in TKO, his wealth remains linked to the company he built into an industry leader. It behooves him to agree to decisions that will keep TKO’s stock price strong and its future outlook brightest.

In this case, that meant agreeing to leaving a position he probably won’t ever regain. It’s a move he likely never could have fathomed in the past, but it’s both a reflection of the new, more corporate WWE, and a sign that McMahon’s past misdeeds appear too great for even him to outrun.

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Lest anyone think WWE and TKO can put the Vince McMahon sexual abuse allegations behind them just because he’s resigned from the company, a new article in The Wall Street Journal reminds everyone that the feds continue to look into him too.

The latest article notes that federal investigators, who first served McMahon with a search warrant and subpoena in July 2023, have spoken with a number of McMahon’s alleged victims since that time. Mentioned by name are Janel Grant, the former WWE employee whose sex trafficking lawsuit set into motion the chain of events that led to McMahon’s resignation from his role as executive chairman of TKO, as well as Rita Chatterton, a former referee who accused McMahon of rape in 1986.

Another alleged victim prosecutors have spoken to is described as “a former WWE employee who alleged the head of talent relations at the company at the time, John Laurinaitis, demoted her after she broke off an affair with him.” Laurinaitis is named as a willing participant and co-defendant in Grant’s lawsuit, though his attorney told Vice this week that he was coerced by McMahon and is “a victim in this case, not a predator.”

The federal investigation into McMahon reportedly dates all the way back to the summer of 2022, when the first reports emerged that he had paid multiple women under NDA agreements to remain quiet about instances of sexual abuse and harassment. He has so far released just a single statement concerning Grant’s lawsuit, maintaining his innocence and vowing to “vigorously defend” himself from the accusations therein.