In this WrestleTalk News, the backstage WWE environment after investigation into Vince
McMahon, more law firms investigating the company, more conflicting reports about whether
Sasha Banks is released or not from WWE and more.
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It’s been one whole week since the report from the Wall Street Journal aired, announcing
that an investigation was underway within WWE, with allegations against the then-CEO
and Chairman Vince McMahon and Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis of having a sexual
relationship with a former paralegal within the company, which was then covered up with
$3million of ‘hush money’.
Since then Vince McMahon has managed to appear on our screens twice and said precisely nothing
in both those appearances, while also saying everything.
But today isn’t about the fan reaction to his appearances, we’ve done a few videos
on that now, but how WWE backstage is right now during this investigative period.
According to a report from Mike Johnson of PWInsider, there is “a lot of silence among
employees” as they’re waiting to see how bad the situation can get, and whether this
could escalate into something that could “really hurt” the company.
The overarching feeling reportedly seems to be to “keep their heads down” and to “not
get caught up in the mess”, because they “don't know what executives will end up
with larger amounts of power” after this is all said and done, so a lot of employees
are “biting their tongues” when it comes to giving opinions, especially in any ways
that could come back to bite them.
With regard to Vince McMahon putting himself back on TV, there has reportedly been “a
lot of headshaking” backstage, with some seeing it as “an act of denial” towards
anyone questioning Vince.
Though there is also reportedly speculation backstage whether this will come back to bite
Vince in the long run.
Some have reportedly wondered if this is “the beginning of the end” for Vince in WWE,
but that is reportedly a minority that think that.
The larger conversation has reportedly been about implementing more “checks and balances”
in the company but if they do, “how could anyone enforce them on Vince”.
With Stephanie McMahon stepping back into the fold as the interim CEO & Chairwoman,
the reported feeling toward her backstage is one of sympathy, since she has been “all
but forced back to work” not long after her leave of absence and wanting to “distance
herself from the company”.
Not only that, but some have reportedly “marveled at how strong Stephanie has been” despite
the public embarrassment of not only her father being caught up in this mess, but the humiliation
of her mother Linda McMahon, who was described as “disrespected”, as it’s not just
the one affair that is being investigated that has been uncovered, as there are multiple
NDAs of a similar nature.
But of course it’s not just Stephanie who’s had to fill in while this investigation runs,
as the Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis has been placed on administrative leave and
his role has been taken up by Bruce Prichard, which some employees reportedly had mixed
feelings on - being happy Laurinaitis was out of the picture but not being too thrilled
Prichard took his place.
That dang monkey’s paw!
But it seems there’s a very clear reason why Prichard was chosen to take this role,
despite him saying in the past he didn’t like doing it, and it’s all to aid Vince
McMahon.
It’s well known that Bruce Prichard and Vince McMahon have a long history together,
and Prichard is one of the few people that is part of Vince’s inner circle along other
names like John Laurinaitis and Kevin Dunn.
And according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, this is exactly why he was
picked to fill in Laurinaitis’ role while he’s on administrative leave:
“Another thing about Bruce being in this position, pretty much tells me that Stephanie
is a figurehead…It kind of tells you as far as you know when it comes to a big move
like that it’s most likely still Vince making the calls which is no surprise.”
When Vince made his first appearance on last week’s SmackDown episode, I mentioned on
my SmackDown review that I interpreted it as a statement of him saying that while he’s
not CEO & Chairman in name right now, he’s still the guy pulling the strings behind the
scenes, and it seems that’s exactly what’s happening.
It’s been mentioned previously that talent weren’t thrilled about Prichard being appointed
to the role, and according to the Mike Johnson PWInsider report, the general response he’d
heard from people backstage was “who else were they going to choose”, which you know,
fair point, given the level of trust Bruce has among the McMahon family.
But this investigation has seemingly opened the floodgates for litigation against WWE.
It had previously been reported that another law firm was looking to investigate the company
and was looking for disgruntled shareholders who had been let down in the past by WWE,
and now it’s being reported by Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics that there are now five different
law firms looking directly at WWE and seeking to speak to shareholders about class action
lawsuits.
Those five firms are: Brager Eagel & Squire, Labaton Sucharow, Rosen Law Firm, Scott+Scott,
and Schall Law Firm.
The litigious sharks have smelled blood in the water and they’re making their move.
And it seems there’s money to be made, and potentially easily as the ongoing lawsuit
between Vince McMahon and Oliver Luck over the XFL, that had previously had settlement
talks fizzle out in just nine minutes, has now reportedly been settled.
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio noted that with everything else going on with Vince
McMahon right now, it makes all the sense in the world that this lawsuit miraculously
came to a settlement when it seemed settlement was out of the question just days prior.
“It’s pretty clear that with all of the stuff on Vince’s plate, that going through
a trial right now was probably the worst thing possible because it would bring a lot of coverage
on every little thing, and it was also a trial that… nearly everybody thought he was gonna
lose that trial, so it would be a big public loss.
And this is probably a way as far as the publicity goes to cut that loss…Before this (the allegations/investigations
becoming public) happened, it was pretty adamant both sides weren’t going to settle.”
Now’s your chance lawsuiters And to add to the backstage environment not being all
that great in WWE right now with people keeping their heads down, not being happy about Bruce
Prichard stepping in to fill Laurinaitis’ role, not liking Vince McMahon appearing on
TV and the threat of more investigations and lawsuits coming soon, a former WWE employee
has shared their thoughts of their time with the company, which wasn’t very pleasant.
In early 2020, writer Dan Ryckert joined WWE, where he would be working on a series of new
podcasts for the company.
In a new interview with MinnMax, Ryckert opened up about his time with the company, which
wasn’t great, honing in on a particular example of coming up with a new podcast for
The New Day to do: “They would fly in these experts, these
podcast marketing experts from Beverly Hills…I got pulled into this room and there’s this
whole PowerPoint thing and they’re trying to think of ways to do a podcast with the
New Day.
The New Day, as a wrestling fan and a friend of those guys, the answer is let them talk
because they are hilarious…They said ‘Now we here at blank have a mad hook-up with the
Color Run people and WWE crushes epic podcasts, so why don’t we use our mad hook-up and
you crushing your epic podcast to make the most epic [podcast].’
I was just like ‘What does that mean?’”
“They said ‘Twitch is a live video game streaming platform where people can play games
and chat with their friends.
Fortnite is one of the biggest games out there, so what if we did something called Ya Boys
Are Twitchin?’...Of course they were like ‘Well, we could brand that as like Twitching
With Ya Boyz or Ya Boyz Are Twitching’...They were like ‘They can chat with their fans
while shooting them in Fortnite’.
I was just like ‘What do you mean?
What is that podcast?
What is this product, who is this for?’.”
Ryckert went on to say he was “creatively frustrated” the entire time he worked for
WWE, which, yeah, I get it.
That sounds…genuinely horrendous.
He also mentioned that these meetings would be “straight out of a dumb comedy”, which
again, yeah, it definitely sounds like it.
We’re not a billion dollar corporation here at WrestleTalk or anything, but if anyone
pitched Ya Boyz Are Twitchin in the office, I don’t think they’d ever live that down.
We’ve always had a 100% success rate with all our branding and videos here, no mistakes
ever.And finally let’s talk about Sasha Banks some more because although we
reached a point where we all thought that we definitely knew whether Banks had been
released or not following her walkout from the company just over a month ago, we still
now don’t know again because there’s conflicting reports about it.
It had previously been reported by Raj Giri that Banks had been released from WWE, and
later on WrestleVotes backed up that report too, and while no other outlets could verify
the info, no one could shoot it down either, with Andrew Zarian mentioning that he’d
heard that Banks’ lawyers had been working on it not long ago to make sure she was released,
so it didn’t seem all that surprising that it had then happened.
But now we might be back to not knowing for sure, as Dave Meltzer mentioned on the Sunday
Night Main Event Podcast that WWE and Banks are still negotiating her release and that
she hasn’t actually been released yet.
“As far as I know, the only thing that I have been told is that they are negotiating
it right now.
I don’t know that the negotiation is final.
I know that it’s been written (in media reports) that it is.
The last I asked, which would have been two days ago, it was not final but it wouldn’t
shock me if it happened this week.
That is how it was described to me a couple of days ago.
Where it is at this moment, I don’t know.”
So Banks is definitely released but also might not be, but even if she isn’t she might
be soon, unless she already is.
Makes perfect sense to me.
It’s QuizzleMania tonight where Denise Salcedo is hosting the show.
Oh god.
But there’s also Fan QuizzleMania tomorrow too - where you get to compete in a QuizzleMania
too on our Patreon page!
This month’s show is co-hosted by Andy Datson and Sullivan Brown!
So head over to our Patreon page to sign up so you can compete too!
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