Is Vince McMahon off the hook, or was he completely exiled?
The past few years of the WWE, business wise and on-screen, have been unpredictable to say the least. The explosive Wall Street Journal story in 2022 that started the snowball that grew into an avalanche altered the course of professional wrestling history. To rehash the details of how Vince McMahon was accused of misconduct that he paid millions of dollars to cover up would be too lengthy, especially when you take into account how he strong-armed his way back onto the WWE Board of Directors to facilitate the sale of the company to Endeavor with the promise that he would be kept in power after with the merger with the UFC was completed.
As we know, Janel Grant, a former girlfriend of McMahon that worked for the company for a brief stint during her relationship with him, filed a lawsuit in January of 2024 that was so shocking that McMahon was finally exiled from the organization in disgrace.
Given the circumstances of Vince’s initial “retirement” after the Wall Street Journal report and his insistence to get back on the board to sell to a buyer that had already agreed to keep him in control of the sports entertainment venture, there’s no doubt that Janel’s lawsuit and the WWE shareholder lawsuit, which was based on the previous agreement that Vince made with Endeavor instead of theoretically looking for the best buyer for the stockholders, were linked to some degree.
That’s also why they both could be settled within a week.
As we know, the stockholder lawsuit was based on the fact that if Vince had a prearranged agreement with Ari Emanuel to sell the WWE to Endeavor in exchange for being put back at the top of WWE, it served McMahon’s personal interest, not the investors. The regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission are put in place to protect investors in situations where they could be deceived or mislead by the commodity that they bought stock for. As the case unfolded, the outlook for the TKO side looked rather grim. Sure, the stockholders made significant money with a return on their investment because of the success of the TKO corporation since the merger, but that has nothing to do with the case itself. The big problem for TKO was that after they were told to maintain evidence such as electronic communications after the lawsuit was initially filed, executives, including Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon, used an app that was set to automatically delete their conversations with Vince.
Basically, there was enough of a paper trail, including text messages sent by Endeavor executives when Vince “retired” in mid-2022 to prove that McMahon had an arrangement with Emanuel. When it was revealed that WWE officials deleted conversations, that was more or less confirmation that they weren’t going to win at trial. This lawsuit was more or less always about reaching a number for a settlement, which is something that the company had to do in similar situations before including when they had to pay $39 million after it was discovered that they mislead shareholders about a lucrative television deal in Saudi Arabia, but the question was, how much cash was it going to take to settle a much bigger lawsuit five years later? If the argument was solid, but still left some room for interpenetration, TKO management would’ve paid a much smaller number compared to how they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar here. The plaintiffs were seeking a few hundred million dollars when the suit was filed, but as of this writing, an official number hasn’t been reported. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the settlement landed somewhere around $100 million, which is still a massive number, but small potatoes in the grand scheme of things when you consider the the corporation is worth somewhere around $38 billion, depending on the stock price.
Just a few days after the stock lawsuit was settled out of court last week so that it didn’t go to trail, the lawyers for Janel Grant and the WWE filed a request for the case to be moved to arbitration, a legal maneuver that will keep the details private. For the majority of the lawsuit, Grant’s attorney looked to keep the case public, and during that time, several graphic text messages were submitted as evidence to support her accusations against the company. With the company settling out of court with the investors to kept it from going to trial, the WWE legal team knows that a settlement with Grant sooner rather than later is probably the best legal move to keep anything else from going public.
In truth, after the Department of Justice dropped the criminal investment into McMahon after his longtime friend, Donald Trump took office for a second term, the resolution of the Grant lawsuit was going to boil down to a number that she would accept for a settlement. The question was, would she end up with the $3 million from the original nondisclosure agreement that she signed, or could she land more cash since the details went public?
Since Vince stopped payment to Grant after the Wall Street Journal story was published, it’s doubtful that she will accept the original number. It’s a sleazy reality of situations like this, but if it takes $20 million to make the entire story go away, it’s a rather small price to pay for McMahon. A major payoff and presumably financial security for the rest of her life, assuming she doesn’t squander the cash, is probably the best case scenario for Grant. Remember, McMahon donated $6 million to Trump’s first campaign, and Linda worked on the board of a Super Pac to raise money for his second term so ethical or not, Vince isn’t going to have to defend himself from criminal charges. It’s only about the number that Janel Grant will accept to settle the lawsuit, and with both sides requesting to move to arbitration, the next step is to determine a number to keep it private.
But, where does this leave Vince?
As delusional as it might sound, there are those that somehow believe that the WWE would propel in popularity again if Vince was put back in charge. Let’s not forget, the drek that Vince booked for the majority of the latter portion of his tenure was so bland that there was enough dissatisfaction that it created the demand for an alternative that when All Elite Wrestling launched in 2019, there was a noticeably part of the pro wrestling demographic that was willing to at least sample the product. No, Vince back as the boss wouldn’t benefit WWE programming, and there’s a legitimate argument to be made that it wouldn’t be a safe environment for female talent.
At 80, there’s no doubt that Vince would takeover again if given the opportunity, he doesn’t plan to do the job for anyone, even the grim reaper so he’d plan to be in the chair for Wrestlemania 62 in a few decades. That being said, it’s a long shot that Ari Emanuel would risk any potential backlash from investors to put Vince back in power, not because of any moral standard, but rather because one of the reasons the house of cards originally fell for McMahon was that it was revealed that he used company money to pay for the nondisclosure agreements to cover up his affairs. Taking into account the Saudi lawsuit five years ago and the shareholder lawsuit that the corporation just settled last week, it wouldn’t be wise for the stability of the stock price to give McMahon any executive power.
So, a position as the head of WWE is probably off the table, but what about a return to television?
Sure, it might be impossible, but it would’ve been thought to be impossible that one day Vince would be on the outside to begin with if someone suggested that possibility just a few years ago. With the legal matters officially closed, it puts more of a distance between Vince and the accusations, as well as the negative publicity. We’ve already seen that he was mentioned occasionally by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon since he was exiled in disgrace. Does this mean that McMahon will be back as a part of a storyline? No, not necessarily, but the way is more or less cleared for Vince to be recognized within company history again. As sleazy as it might be, given the evidence to support the accusations against him, a Hall of Fame induction to celebrate his career would be considered a monumental WWE moment. Of course, the fans would gleefully bow and praise him, which is one of the many reasons that pro wrestling will always be considered low brow entertainment, regardless of how much main stream distribution it gets. Aside from the payoffs between the two cases, that might be the biggest takeaway from the collective stories, this could ultimately be the first step toward fully restoring Vince McMahon’s existence within WWE history, even if it’s debatable if he should be celebrated by the company.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
