The Wrestling Thread: AEW Dynasty

Johnny Ryall wrote:Jeff Hardy arrested for driving blackout drunk. Like nearly 4x over the limit close to alcohol poisoning drunk. I’m done supporting him. Get him to strawberry float man.

He's an absolute tool, all that money, a wife and kid at home and he's still getting behind the wheel completely out of it, apparently he should have had an interlock and it wasn't in the car either. He's evidently got a huge addiction problem that he refuses to face, but it's not excuse, time and time again.

Wouldn't surprise me one day to find out he's killed himself in a DUI. He's surely looking at jailtime here and probably being released by AEW at this point, Warnermedia have already been told to pull him from all advertising and commercials.

From the Wall Street Journal in the last hour:

(Dow Jones) -- The board of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. is investigating a secret $3 million settlement that longtime chief executive Vince McMahon agreed to pay to a departing employee with whom he allegedly had an affair, according to documents and people familiar with the board inquiry. The January 2022 separation agreement bars the now-former employee, who was hired as a paralegal in 2019, from discussing her relationship with Mr. McMahon or disparaging him, the people said.

The board's investigation, which began in April, has unearthed other, older nondisclosure agreements involving claims by former female WWE employees of misconduct by Mr. McMahon and one of his top executives, John Laurinaitis, the head of talent relations at WWE, the people said. The Journal couldn't determine how many previous agreements were being scrutinized.

The board's outside counsel was still collecting information about the other NDAs this week but has determined that the payments totaled in the millions of dollars, the people said.

The board's eight independent directors have retained New York-based law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP to conduct the investigation, one of the people said. The board's preliminary findings are that Mr. McMahon used personal funds to pay the former female employees who signed the agreements, including the one involving allegations against Mr. Laurinaitis, this person said.

More broadly, the law firm also is assessing WWE's compliance and human-resources programs and company culture, the person said. A WWE spokesman said the company, which runs the world's most-famous wrestling business, is cooperating fully with the board inquiry and that the relationship with the ex-paralegal was consensual. He added that the company takes the allegations seriously and is dealing with them appropriately. Messrs. McMahon and Laurinaitis didn't respond directly to requests to comment.

In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. McMahon's attorney, Jerry McDevitt, said that the former paralegal hadn't made any claims of harassment against Mr. McMahon and that "WWE did not pay any monies" to the ex-employee "on her departure."

WWE reported record revenue of $1.1 billion last year and net income of $180.4 million, with most of its revenue from selling content rights, including a five-year exclusive agreement with NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming platform in 2021 that is valued at $1 billion.

WWE also has TV licensing agreements with Fox Corp. and NBCUniversal, and recently secured its first stand-alone international distribution deal with Disney Plus Hotstar in Indonesia. Fox Corp. and Wall Street Journal parent News Corp share common ownership.

WWE also is seeking to make more international deals and its negotiations closer to home. The company's deal with Hulu, which streams WWE's Monday Night Raw, is set to expire later this year. Walt Disney Co. holds a majority stake in the streaming platform.

The 12-member board of directors includes several WWE executives and members of the McMahon family, including Mr. McMahon, who is chairman; his daughter Stephanie McMahon; her husband, Paul Levesque, better known as the wrestler Triple H; and WWE President Nick Khan. Man Jit Singh, a former Sony Pictures Home Entertainment executive, is the lead independent director and is running the inquiry, according to people familiar with it.

Ms. McMahon stepped away from her role as WWE's chief brand officer last month, writing in a LinkedIn post that she was "taking this time to focus on my family" but that she planned to return.

Though its stock is publicly traded, Mr. McMahon effectively controls the company, WWE securities filings show, as he owns a majority of the company's Class B shares, giving him a majority of shareholders' voting power. The Class B shares have 10 times the voting power of the Class A shares available to regular investors and are owned exclusively by Mr. McMahon, his family and trusts benefiting individual family members, the filings show.

Board members learned of the $3 million agreement in a series of anonymous emails they received from someone who said the former WWE paralegal was a friend.

The first email, sent to board members on March 30, alleged that Mr. McMahon, 76 years old, initially hired the woman at a salary of $100,000 but increased it to $200,000 after beginning a sexual relationship with her. The email to the board also alleged that Mr. McMahon "gave her like a toy" to Mr. Laurinaitis. The board is investigating the allegations in the email, the people familiar with the inquiry said.

"My friend was so scared so she quit after Vince McMahon and lawyer Jerry paid her millions of dollars to shut up," the initial email to the board said, referring to Mr. McMahon's longtime lawyer, Mr. McDevitt, who negotiated the deal, according to people familiar with the board inquiry.

Mr. McDevitt, a Pittsburgh-based partner at law firm K&L Gates, has represented WWE and Mr. McMahon for decades. He defended them in the 1990s against federal charges of distributing and conspiring to distribute steroids to WWE wrestlers. A jury acquitted Mr. McMahon and WWE in 1994. WWE is partnering with production company Blumhouse to develop "The United States Vs. Vince McMahon," a TV series about the steroids case.

The directors received a copy of the $3 million agreement from one of Mr. McMahon's lawyers on June 12, one person familiar with the inquiry said. The nondisclosure agreement provided an upfront payment of $1 million to the former employee, with the remaining $2 million to be doled out over a period of five years, people familiar with the deal said.

The former employee, 41, had fallen on hard times before joining the company and spoke of needing extra money, said people who spoke with her while she worked at WWE. She said she had a law degree but had never taken the bar exam, telling colleagues that her career got sidetracked while she tended to a sick parent, they said.

The former employee moved from the legal department in 2021 to become an assistant to Mr. Laurinaitis, according to the people familiar with the inquiry. Near the outset of the inquiry, lawyers for the independent directors asked WWE, Mr. McMahon and Mr. Laurinaitis to turn over complaints or allegations about any relationships the executives may have had with company employees, one of the people said.

In recent days, the investigators learned of the other nondisclosure agreements involving allegations against Messrs. McMahon and Laurinaitis, the person said. Mr. Laurinaitis, a former wrestler whose ring name was Johnny Ace, has been at WWE since 2001 in various roles and most recently as the company's top talent recruiter. His biography on the WWE website describes him as "one of Mr. McMahon's most trusted associates."

Mr. McMahon bought Capitol Wrestling Co., the holding company that owned what was then known as the World Wrestling Federation, from his father in 1982, corporate records show. In partnership with his wife, Linda McMahon, who served as head of the Small Business Administration in the Trump administration, Mr. McMahon expanded the company into a colossus of the professional wrestling boom of the 1980s, turning performers like Hulk Hogan, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Jesse Ventura into household names.

Decades later, WWE continues to portray Mr. McMahon as critical to the company's success. Mr. McMahon "leads the creative team that develops the story lines and the characters for our programming (including our television, WWE Network and other programming)," the company reported in a regulatory filing, which lists the potential loss of the CEO as a risk factor for investors.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wwe-board- ... 1655322722

So that’s why Stephanie left, eh.

twitter.com/platinummax/status/1537192490587066368

Uh oh. I’m guessing though nothing will come from it.

As we all now know about this does he get a refund?

The email to the board also alleged that Mr. McMahon "gave her like a toy" to Mr. Laurinaitis.

Return_of_the_STAR wrote:Uh oh. I’m guessing though nothing will come from it.

Something may come of it what with so much money involved. Board will be like "We let 3m leave and it didn't go to any of us?!"

Looks like he paid it from private funds though.

So the board are investigating the disrepute brought upon the organisation? I mean... it can't be because a employee was mistreated :lol:

Laurinaitis I think is still married to the Bella twins Mum (she would have had major brain surgery and been unwell at the time all of this was alleged to have taken place). It then goes full Jerry Springer if you believe Maria Kanellis, as she's heavily implied on a number of occasions that he's had sex with all three of them. I think you have to take a lot of these shoot interviews with a pinch of salt as so many in wrestling just seem to be completely full of gooseberry fool, but the behaviour of Michael Hayes and John Laurinaitis are two names that just keep popping up no matter who is telling these stories.

WWE, McMahon and the whole environment has always been virtually teflon, but there surely has to be a point the past catches up with them.

For those that watched Vince McMahon's interview with Pat Mcafee before Mania, it was strange how he referred to Linda McMahon as his "then wife" before then correcting himself with "...my wife". They've probably not been properly together for years. He told Playboy magazine maybe 15-20 years ago that he's had affairs, so that's not exactly a big secret.

I feel like he's been through worse and come out the other end richer. No morals at all that man.

What happens to the WWE brand over the next decade, maybe the next few years, & certainly post McMahon is going to be fascinating. Even if they're eventually owned by a big conglomerate like Disney or Comcast it's then finding someone capable of actually running the thing, which was always Ted Turner's recurring problem with WCW. It'll be a revolving door.

Looks like Randy Orton could be another big name missing Clash At The Castle:

Fightful is reporting that the WWE fears Randy Orton will have to undergo back surgery for the injury that he's dealing with. WWE sources told Fightful that, if Orton does need to undergo surgery, he'll likely be out of action for the remainder of 2022.

Fightful notes that Orton had "work done to improve his condition" before the Tag Team title unification match, but the extent of the work he had done isn't known. "We’re told that things have gotten progressively worse," the report said.

Good job Cena is coming back, though not sure for how long.

WWE & Board of Directors Joint Release

Independent directors continue review of alleged executive misconduct

Stephanie McMahon named interim CEO and interim Chairwoman

Stamford, Conn. – WWE (NYSE: WWE) and the Board of Directors today announced that a Special Committee of the Board is conducting an investigation into alleged misconduct by its Chairman and CEO Vincent McMahon and John Laurinaitis, head of talent relations, and that, effective immediately, McMahon has voluntarily stepped back from his responsibilities as CEO and Chairman of the Board until the conclusion of the investigation. McMahon will retain his role and responsibilities related to WWE’s creative content during this period and remains committed to cooperating with the review underway.

The Special Committee has appointed Stephanie McMahon to serve as interim CEO and interim Chairwoman.

“I have pledged my complete cooperation to the investigation by the Special Committee, and I will do everything possible to support the investigation. I have also pledged to accept the findings and outcome of the investigation, whatever they are,” said Mr. McMahon.

“I love this company and am committed to working with the Independent Directors to strengthen our culture and our Company; it is extremely important to me that we have a safe and collaborative workplace. I have committed to doing everything in my power to help the Special Committee complete its work, including marshaling the cooperation of the entire company to assist in the completion of the investigation and to implement its findings,” said Ms. McMahon.

WWE and its Board of Directors take all allegations of misconduct very seriously. The Independent Directors of the Board engaged independent legal counsel to assist them with an independent review. In addition, the Special Committee and WWE will work with an independent third-party to conduct a comprehensive review of the company’s compliance program, HR function and overall culture.

The Company and the Board do not expect to have further comment until the investigation is concluded.

https://corporate.wwe.com/investors/new ... -120023255

Last edited by Cumberdanes on Fri Jun 17, 2022 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I recently read a fairly long Twitter thread of sketchy gooseberry fool Vince McMahon has done over the years. I know he played a nasty piece of work on TV but it looks like the reality could be much worse.

I do wonder if he'll every come back as CEO and chairman. It's all about appeasing shareholders and the last thing he wants is a large shareholder to take an moral stance and sell WWE stock.

twitter.com/WWE/status/1537786958533079043

Cumberdanes wrote:I recently read a fairly long Twitter thread of sketchy gooseberry fool Vince McMahon has done over the years. I know he played a nasty piece of work on TV but it looks like the reality could be much worse.

Got a link to this?

RetroCora wrote:
Cumberdanes wrote:I recently read a fairly long Twitter thread of sketchy gooseberry fool Vince McMahon has done over the years. I know he played a nasty piece of work on TV but it looks like the reality could be much worse.

Got a link to this?

https://twitter.com/drainbamager/status/1537178782548709378?s=21&t=eaF9KVy2JseXwpMzskrWLQ

Mafro wrote:

twitter.com/WWE/status/1537786958533079043

Very odd.

A pre-recorded statement, perhaps.

The Wrestling Thread: AEW Dynasty

Who is online

Affiliates