2023 has begun with an industry shaking wrestling war.
No, not between WWE and AEW.
Not between Ryback and that guy who told him to retire’s mum.
It’s WWE vs its disgraced original founder Vince McMahon.
Because Vince McMahon is set to unleash a full-scale attack on the company that kicked
him out, to seize back control, and then potentially kill it all together.
In short, yes, it is the nWo ‘lethal dose of poison’ promo he cut back in 2002.
Make sure to superkick that subscribe and enable notifications to always on so we can
keep you up to date with all the crazy twists and turns, while I explain the full story
of Vince’s last mad plan…
The beginning of the end for Vince McMahon began in April 2022, when the WWE board began
investigating a $3 million hush-money payment Vince had made to a former employee of the
company.
McMahon claims the relationship was consensual.
To explain the concept of a board of directors in a publicly traded company, as this will
be very important later on, it’s a group of very experienced people who hold those
running said company to account.
The board is elected by the shareholders, who are parties that have bought stock in
the company, as a way to make sure the company is being run well to protect their investment.
The board is supposed to make sure the strategy is sound, that growth is always growing, and,
on a good day, that none of the executive team are sexually exploiting their positions
in the company.
The board’s investigation was made public two months later, when the Wall Street Journal
revealed what was happening to the world.
Their article was well researched and sourced, and posed the question: who was the person
who leaked the investigation to the press?
With a situation so delicate, only a select few would know.
There was speculation that someone on WWE’s board of directors, made up of just over ten
people, was the source of the leak.
The next five weeks saw the investigation uncover multiple other nondisclosure agreements
related to sexual misconduct claims against McMahon, totalling $12 million.
But like Al Capone, it seemed to be the accounting that really did him in.
Those payments might have been incorrectly filed for in the company financials, a big
corporate no-no, and the SEC started to sniff around.
Vince was dragged, kicking and screaming, from his position.
He had to be talked out of addressing the allegations in a promo on SmackDown.
He started to appear on every episode of main roster TV, defiantly showing people he’s
still here.
He initially stepped down from his roles as CEO and Chairman, as it was now publicly known
he was being investigated, but clung onto his position of Head of Creative.
But then on July 22nd, 2022, he announced: “At 77, time for me to retire.
Thank you, WWE Universe.
Then.
Now.
Forever.
Together.
#WWE #thankful” Well that was easy.
WWE finally got rid of Vince after over 40 years, and it only took five weeks?
And he didn’t start a podcast or kept tweeting cryptic negs at Triple H’s booking, who
took over for him in creative.
The only thing we heard from Vince for five months was a photo of him having a nice dinner
in New York.
That was easy.
Was it balls.
It was always weird that Vince just disappeared into the night.
One of the most ruthless, cutthroat players in all of business, not just wrestling, was
never just going to bow out with a tweet.
And just like the end of a video game where you think you’ve defeated the main boss
in a relatively simple ten minute fight, for it to come back in giant megazord form for
a ridiculously difficult finale that takes you eight weeks to complete - yes I am calling
Vince McMahon Ganondorf - McMahon has just spent those five months powering up, recruiting
allies, and plotting - that’s the literal word used by the Wall Street Journal to describe
this, ‘plotting’, like he really is an evil mastermind - to take WWE back.
In December, another Wall Street Journal was published that revealed “two women who allege
that [McMahon] sexually assaulted them” were seeking damages.
One of them was former wrestling referee Rita Chatterton who had publicly accused Vince
of raping her three decades ago, and she was seeking $11.75 million.
This was made possible because New York state opened a one-year window that allows victims
to file sex-abuse lawsuits based on decades old claims.
It seemed like it was just getting worse for Vince.
So he thought this was the perfect time to try to make a comeback.
The Journal article noted that McMahon “has told people that he intends to make a comeback
at WWE” after feeling he received “bad advice from people close to him to step down.”
Apparently, he believed the allegations and investigations would’ve blown over he had
stayed.
Then on January 5th, the Wall Street Journal again, who presumably definitely have their
sources very high up in WWE, reported that Vince returning to the company was very much
on his New Year’s Resolutions - packaged around the idea that he is the only one that
can pull of a big time sale of the business.
Apparently, following the last Journal article noting he intended to make a comeback, Vince
sent a letter to the board “detailing his desire to return… to help guide a strategic-review
process.”
He put forward his belief that the media landscape is changing at the exact same time the TV
rights for WWE’s flagship shows Raw and SmackDown are up for renegotiation.
After all, he was a big part in the last time the media landscape changed with the launch
of the WWE Network - the first big time IP-specific streaming platform of that era.
He believes that broadcast or streaming companies now want to go one step further.
They don’t just want to pay a billion dollars for the rights to air Raw or SmackDown for
five years.
They want to pay outright to just own all of WWE so they’re secured in the long haul.
This is definitely a trend in media, facilitate by the likes of Disney, Amazon and Apple all
making big time IP investments to one-up traditional broadcasters, and one that WWE has already
dabbled with under Vince, licensing the WWE Network to Peacock for five years.
Vince reportedly told the board “that unless he has direct involvement as executive chairman
from the outset of a strategic review, he won’t support or approve any media-rights
deal or sale.”
Taking morality out of this, this is actually a really good plan.
Which is why it’s a genius bit of media manipulation for Vince to smuggle his return
inside of it.
The Sale of WWE is a big trojan horse wheeling its way into the board room, the media, and
most importantly, the stock market, which hides a disgraced, hugely controversial former
Chairman driving it from the inside.
Making Vince’s reinstatement inseparable from the sale of WWE puts the board in an
enormously difficult position.
They’re meant to protect shareholders’ interests.
But the shareholders’ interests can mostly be summed up as make all the money.
And now Vince is the only way we can make them the mostest amount of money.
And anyway, it might be legally impossible to stop him.
The board reportedly responded to Vince’s letter where he said he wanted to come back
saying, erm, no.
That’s a really bad idea.
Because we’re trying to downplay all the massive legal and securities issues you’ve
created, because the US government have launched an inquiry into all those payments.
The board did say they would “welcome” working with Vince on the sale strategy, but
they “unanimously agreed that Mr. McMahon’s return to the business wouldn’t be in shareholders’
best interest”.
So there’s only one thing to do.
Change who’s on the board.
You see, while Vince only owns about 39% of WWE’s shares, he has very smartly retained
control of over 80% of its voting power.
In business, you can have loads of different kinds of shares, which have different special
powers - like decks in a game of Pokemon.
Some mean you get paid a portion of the profits every year, but that’s it.
Others mean you benefit financially if there’s ever any more investment or a sale.
And some just have the power for you to put your dick on the table and tell everyone else
what to do.
So making up the rear-end of Vince’s Trojan Horse are the executives he fired just before
the pandemic.
It’s like a Royal Rumble nostalgia return for boring people in suits - former CFO with
a forehead full of financials, George Barrios, and former Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer
Michelle Wilson.
Ironically, Vince ruthlessly fired them three years ago because they wouldn’t support
his plan to sell the rights to the WWE Network, and were replaced by Nick Khan, who did.
And now they’re coming back on board to help sell the whole company.
If you’ve seen Succession, picture the self-interested non-family members Frank and Gerry.
The Wall Street Journal notes that McMahon, Barrios and Wilson being forced back onto
the board will “require three current directors to vacate their positions.”
[QUOTE] Who gets removed will be very interesting, as you would expect Vince to remove those
he perceives as his enemies, and perhaps even those he suspects of leaking the investigation
in the first place.
It’s unknown how this will affect Stephane McMahon and Nick Khan’s roles as Co-CEOs.
Vince McMahon announced this in a press release through the PR company August Strategic Communications.
This is a very important detail.
This is not a statement from WWE.
It’s from Vince McMahon at WWE.
Make no mistake about it, this is the corporate equivalent of a war.
In the press release, Vince is quoted saying: “The only way for WWE to fully capitalize
on this opportunity is for me to return as Executive Chairman and support the management
team in the negotiations for our media rights and to combine that with a review of strategic
alternatives.
My return will allow WWE, as well as any transaction counterparties, to engage in these processes
knowing they will have the support of the controlling shareholder.”
Which is PR talk for, you can’t do this without me, bitches!
The board believe Vince is bad for the shareholders, Vince believes he is good for the shareholders.
That will be the narrative war waged.
And going by the cold hard stock market, designed to only care about financial performance,
it worked.
WWE’s stock price rose over 10% following the news.
This is very unlikely a boost due to Vince, though.
When McMahon announced his retirement in July, the stock price actually rose 9%.
Following the December report he was planning to return, share value suffered a dip.
Going by those correlations, Vince’s name is bad for shareholders.
What isn’t though, is WWE being sold for loads of money.
Make no mistake about it, the stock price rise is because of that, not because of Vince
- which is why it was such a smart strategy to link the two.
But will the benefits of a potential sale outweigh the risks of bringing Vince back?
There’s the two sexual abuse cases currently against him, which he denies.
There’s the SEC scrutiny of how the NDA money was paid.
Stephanie McMahon mentioned in the last investors call that some advertisers had paused their
campaigns with WWE in light of the Vince situation.
And, of course, there’s the quality of WWE programming.
Since Vince left and Triple H took over, the standard of Raw and SmackDown has improved
dramatically.
For now, McMahon’s return appears to be purely corporate, and not onscreen creative.
But Charlotte Flair did return on SmackDown to immediately win the title, which is the
most Vince McMahon piece of booking ever.
He might not be able to help himself once back in the company, which is apparently a
big concern behind the scenes.
Fightful is reporting many WWE employees were “left in the dark” about Vince’s plot
and were shocked by the news - finding out online as it broke rather than through any
internal update from the company.
One talent said there could be “roster uproar” if the hugely liked regime of Triple H, Stephanie
and Nick Khan are removed.
Spare a thought for William Regal, who left AEW to work under his buddy Triple H, for
the evil overlord to potentially scrap that under a month later.
2023 has begun the way 2022 finished - by being f****** mental.
Watch our breakdown of the whole of wrestling
in 2022 now.