It was a terrible week.
Days removed from the lawsuit filed by Janel Grant against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis, and WWE alleging sexual assault, sex trafficking, and physical and emotional abuse, an industry is reeling as it assesses the depths of where this scandal goes beyond the ousted kingpin of WWE.
For decades, McMahon has operated with Teflon to evade a child sex abuse scandal in the early ‘90s, steroid distribution charges, his company on the brink of existence in 1997, outside business failings, deaths of wrestlers, a murder/suicide case, and yet, came through intact with his business growing to unprecedented heights. From going public in 1999, seeing the soaring escalation of television rights fees, and wrapping his brand around NBC, Fox, and now Netflix, the company bore the faintest of comparisons to the one he secured from his father over forty years previously.
However, along the way, we saw a window into Vince McMahon that veered into problematic areas with women who were downplayed, rationalized, or outright ignored.
Rita Chatterton was a former WWF referee under the pseudonym “Rita Marie”, who alleged that she was raped by McMahon inside a limo in July 1986. Her trainer and confidante Leonard Inzitari a.k.a. “Mario Mancini” stated he was told of the incident by Chatterton right after it occurred while also informing André Roussimoff a.k.a. “André the Giant” (who died in 1993).
Chatterton came forward with the allegations in 1992 and cited her parent’s declining health as one of the factors for not speaking about it previously. After her parents died, she was willing to speak publicly on Geraldo Rivera’s Now It Can Be Told news program and an in-studio appearance on The Geraldo Rivera Show.
Beyond the physical assault being alleged, Chatterton painted a picture of McMahon exuding his power by making grand promises of media exposure, action figures, and a $500,000 contract being dangled.
In 1993, Vince & Linda McMahon countered with a lawsuit against Chatterton, Rivera, David Shults, and the Tribune Entertainment Company stating they made and aired a false accusation of rape and a conspiracy concocted by Shults and Chatterton to falsify a tape recording of the allegations to use for blackmail, according to the complainants.
The suit was abandoned by the McMahons with their reasoning being their attention to the pending steroid distribution trial.
Over the past year, Chatterton’s name resurfaced after Abe Josephine Riesman wrote a story for New York Magazine including the contemporaneous account from Inzintari.
In January 2023, McMahon reached a multi-million dollar settlement with Chatterton after the former referee issued a demand letter seeking $11.75 million.
In 2006, McMahon was accused of sexually assaulting a tanning salon employee. McMahon was not charged in the incident but when the police report was unearthed, it stated that while there was insufficient evidence to proceed, they noted
“There is probable cause to believe that Vincent McMahon did actually intentionally touch against the will of [REDACTED], contrary to Florida statute 784.03(1)”.
The allegations included McMahon showing nude photos of himself to the employee before making advances toward the woman and allegedly groping her.
During the Wall Street Journal’s reporting of McMahon in 2022, they uncovered another incident from 2011 where McMahon was accused of sexually assaulting a manager at a luxury spa in California.
Along the way, myriad non-disclosure agreements were agreed to with various women with that knowledge coming to light in June 2022 through the reporting of Joe Palazzolo and Ted Mann at the Wall Street Journal. The largest NDA was connected to a former WWE talent for $7.5 million. The only identities of those signing NDAs that have been disclosed are Chatterton and Janel Grant.
Grant’s lawsuit did not merely depict the actions of one man but an institution that fostered McMahon’s actions and allowed him to run free with no accountability or measures for protection.
The degree of complicity could vary but it is clear that Grant’s lawsuit is not merely isolating McMahon and cohort John Laurinaitis as the beginning and the end of the problem. There are four unnamed executives that Grant claims had knowledge of the relationship and that it became an open secret.
Grant claims that many others inside and outside of the company were aware that McMahon was accused of sharing sexually explicit material of Grant to others for McMahon’s entertainment and going so far as accusing McMahon of using her as a negotiating chip for talent.
It is a dark and sick picture painted by Grant and one where the courts will be the arbiter.
McMahon has stated he will defend himself against the allegations by Grant:
I stand by my prior statement that Ms. Grant’s lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and is a vindictive distortion of the truth. I intend to vigorously defend myself against these baseless accusations, and look forward to clearing my name.
This is a civil case, but it opens the larger question of greater oversight and how deep this could go.
Last July, a search warrant was issued with federal agents serving McMahon with a grand jury subpoena and disclosed by WWE the next month, with McMahon telling CNBC:
I have always denied any intentional wrongdoing and continue to do so. I am confident that the government’s investigation will be resolved without any findings of wrongdoing.
Over the past week, the lurid details of the lawsuit have added specificity to the allegations and painted a clearer picture that forces the public and media to go beyond the broad descriptions of “allegations”, “hush money payments”, and “inappropriate relations.”
Along the way, the monetary aspect of the scandal seemed to take greater focus, partly because the subjects of the NDAs were bound to anonymity. Today, we have a name and a face in Janel Grant attached to some of the most horrific allegations you are ever going to read about, and it has brought everyone’s attention to the real story of a victim and not payoffs, proper or improper disclosures, and SEC filings.
WWE’s response on Saturday was to send Paul Levesque out for his traditional post-event press conference. Either he had the confidence to absorb whatever questions were sent his way or felt confident the media would be focused on other events. What we saw was an individual lacking sufficient preparation for the multiple questions posed related to the McMahon scandal and sounding out of touch when reminding everyone that “it was an amazing week” as though a new broadcast deal balances out a scandal that has forced the latest ouster of McMahon.
Slim Jim was the first shoe to drop in reaction to the scandal by pulling their sponsorship of the Royal Rumble, only to jump back on after McMahon’s resignation.
It will behoove WWE to position McMahon’s resignation as the elimination of the problem but as the lawsuit portends, McMahon ran free with no discretion, no checks and balances, and a list of those who opted to ignore rather than react.
Questions must be asked of the veracity of the independent investigation from 2022 into the actions of McMahon when Grant called into question its thoroughness. Former board member Jeffrey Speed defended the investigation and stated there was “outreach” to Grant’s side, but that word must be defined and expanded upon.
From the lawsuit:
In November 2022, WWE touted the conclusion of the Special Committee investigation into the misconduct – yet the Special Committee never even bothered to interview Ms. Grant or request any documents despite Ms. Grant stating that she would cooperate.
What is known is that one month after the completion of the investigation, the board of directors voted unanimously for McMahon not to return after his short-lived departure from the company (a departure that Ronda Rousey stated was only window dressing with Bruce Prichard acting as McMahon’s surrogate). McMahon’s controlling shares obfuscated that unanimous refusal, by forcing his way back onto the board and thus, receiving unanimous support once it was clear the board was powerless to enforce its initial stance.
Just two days before the lawsuit was made public, Nick Khan was waxing poetic with Pat McAfee about McMahon in loving fashion while the two placed him on a pedestal. The company that had previously been mired in scandal by this man, was brazen enough to have a t-shirt celebrating McMahon’s Royal Rumble victory from twenty-five years ago on sale this past weekend, only pulling it once the lawsuit was filed.
McMahon has crafted an image that has placed an armor around him for decades – impervious to scrutiny or attention under a serious lens. As recently as the emergence of the 2022 stories, take inventory of the B-roll on mainstream outlets of McMahon in outlandish situations from his on-camera persona coupled with endless wrestling pun-related headlines and you see why professional wrestling skirts by due to the lack of seriousness most outlets assign it.
That didn’t fly this time around with the subject matter described by Grant way beyond the pale that any news outlet not providing the sensitivity warranted would be mortgaging its own credibility.
WWE has never been bigger and yet its image was severely compromised in the court of public opinion. It will be the court of law that adjudicates the next process with the larger question of whether criminal charges are sought out by higher agencies and as the shovels dig deeper, can the public stomach what is discovered?
It was a terrible week.
