Wall Street Journal reporters Joe Palazzolo and Ted Mann discussed their reports on WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon and Talent Relations chief John Laurinaitis on Busted Open Radio. They also hinted that there may be more allegations to come.
When they first learned of the Board of Directors’ special committee inquiry into the alleged $3 million “hush pact” McMahon had with a former WWE paralegal in April, Palazzolo and Mann said they started working on the topic. It was mentioned that they had a call list of more than 100 people for these stories.
WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray and co-host of Busted Open asked about their decision to cover the subject.
Palazzolo responded, “Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, Wall Street Journal covers public companies, WWE is a public company. This is clearly a governance issue, right? We write for investors and when your Board of Directors is investigating something like this and I mean it’s pretty interesting, right? So the Board, which it’s a 12-member Board and four of those members are insiders, meaning that they work for the company and then the eight are independent but when it comes down to it, Vince [McMahon] controls the company essentially. So, there’s a governance issue. It’s important for our readers to understand what’s going on and then we sort of knew that these allegations while the company is saying that this is a consensual relationship that he had with this woman, we started hearing about other issues that were not consensual so, you know, we feel like those are things that need to be reported as well.”
Mann added, “And I will just add one thing to that. As Joe said, it’s a public company and we’re operating in an environment where there is very little tolerance for any sort of relationship of this type between CEO or an Executive or someone who is a subordinate, even if it is consensual, because the power dynamic that exists there is something that has proved to be really dangerous for the more subordinate person in the company and so, that’s one of the ways in which all public companies have been representing that they’re not really going to allow things like this to be swept under the rug anymore and certainly in this case, when there’s something that was a total secret from the Board… some members of the Board for a long time, we find it interesting and that makes us wanna go digging and find out more.”
In the second report, which was published last week, it was revealed that McMahon had given four women more than $12 million in “hush money” over the years, including a $7.5 million payment to a former WWE wrestler who was released in 2005 after her contract expired. This compensation amount, according to Mann and Palazzolo, was the most striking discovery in their research.
Mann said, “Joe, maybe I don’t wanna speak for you but, as we were reporting out what settlement agreements were existent, the fact that there was one for seven-and-a-half million dollars was fairly eye-popping. That’s a figure that, you know, in the murky world of NDAs, clearly suggests a big secret being kept and that was one of the red flags that seemed odd to us that we had to get to the bottom of what that was, what it was for.”
Palazzolo added, “Yeah, I totally agree with Ted. Finding out that there was that $7.5 million agreement was really surprising. I mean, it shocked us. [The details] are pretty horrifying frankly. To coerce a sex act to then basically drive someone out of the company because they refused further advances as this woman has alleged, that’s all pretty terrible behavior.”
They were also questioned regarding the possibility of additional information.
Palazzolo responded, “Um… I think that yes. I think that it’s probably not done yet and we’re continuing to report, so yeah. Well I can just say we don’t know of another $7.5 million N.D.A. if that’s what — like so… No. No, no, no [Palozzolo responded when asked if similar allegations are going to be uncovered]. All I’m saying is you’re asking [is there] something bigger than a 7.5? No. That’s not something we have in our back pocket. We sort of have left it all out on the field in this story and there’s a couple of things that we — that we didn’t that we’re still reporting now but you know, it’s iterative.”
Mann said, “And sometimes it’s a case as happened in similar scandals elsewhere that there are people who have something to share who become a little more emboldened to talk about it once some of the first coverage has happened and you know, we’re still working to figure out if there are such people out there.”
They weren’t sure, but they noticed that they frequently heard the responses “look at the character [Vince] plays” and “this shouldn’t be a surprise” in answer when asked why last week’s report hadn’t garnered as much mainstream media attention as the initial report did.
They added that “can’t be something [WWE’s various business partners] aren’t paying attention to. Anyone doing business with the company is paying attention.”
Additionally, Mann and Palazzolo acknowledged that they haven’t spoken to McMahon.
As PWMania.com previously reported, it was disclosed on Wednesday, June 15 that Vince was the subject of an inquiry by the WWE Board of Directors regarding the “secret $3 million settlement” he had given to the former paralegal employed in 2019. The involvement of Laurinaitis is also under investigation, and the Board is also looking into other incidents involving former female employees. Then, on Friday, June 17, it was revealed that Stephanie had come back from her leave of absence to serve as the interim CEO and chairwoman after Vince willingly stood down from his chairman and CEO business obligations while continuing to carry out his creative tasks. Then, on Monday, June 20, it was made public that Bruce Prichard, Senior Vice President of WWE and Executive Producer of RAW/SmackDown, is also serving as Interim Senior Vice President of Talent Relations, standing in for Laurinaitis throughout the inquiry. Then, today, Friday, July 8, it was made public that McMahon had agreed to pay four women, among them a former wrestler, more than $12 million in “hush money.”
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more.
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