Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Jmare007]

48 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Her lawyer released a statement basically hoping this lawsuit opens the door for others who went through that type of treatment from Vince.

Yeah, which is why is later said that if WWE is directly involved in Vince's abuses it will probably be a cases with more victims and even more damning evidence.

[El-P]

24 minutes ago, sek69 said:

You're not wrong, but at the same time what are they supposed to say?

I dunno, that's their problem, not mine. React like decent human beings maybe ? Show the victim some sympathy ? Talk about how this is appalling and how the company must change as a whole ? Show unity and blast this shit like it should ? Where's an union when you need it I guess. Maybe some of the older ones are uncomfortable and for good reasons. 

But nah. Eric Young is the only guy who showed any kind of ethics in this whole debacle, really (for those who don't know, he requested to be released basically when Vince got back, and told in an interview later that he could not "work under that person and look at himself in the mirror".)

24 minutes ago, sek69 said:

If I'm AEW or any other company right now you don't need to say a thing, just sit back and let the story speak for itself. The last thing you want to do is be seen like you're using this as another talking point in a tribal war between fanbases.

Oh for sure, weaponizing this for a "pro-rasslin warz" would be godwaful. 

[sek69]

Y'know, thinking about who the "Unnamed WWE Employees" might be, and while one almost assuredly is Bruce, and the other one most likely is Kevin Dunn....could the third one be Jerry McDevitt? One section has the unnamed person regaling the WWE legal department with his tales of debauchery, and it had to be him right? Dude probably knows where more skeletons are buried than anyone.

[El-P]

Kevin Dunn's retirement timing looks quite interesting now too, for sure.

[Jmare007]

The wording in the document is that the WWE employee was in the board of directors, which neither Bruce or Dunn were at the time, I think.

I saw a clip from Thursrton were he said that only 4 people could be Steph, HHH, Nick Khan or Frank Riddick

 

[sek69]

I feel like anyone who has been in the Second-in-Command role right under Vince (Patterson, Bruce, Khan) had to have full knowledge because they would have been needed to be ready to be in charge if Vince ever went down.  Considering the level of John Laurenitits's involvement you have to look at the Head of Talent Relations over the decades and wonder now too.

[El-P]

7 minutes ago, sek69 said:

 Considering the level of John Laurenitits's involvement you have to look at the Head of Talent Relations over the decades and wonder now too.

The Diva Search years look gloomier and gloomier too. Grooming as part of the product, basically.

[Embrodak]

2 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

I think you are making this case something it's not. I didn't read the whole thing, but from what I understand, Grant doesn't want to uncover all the fucked up shit that happened (happens?) in WWE under Vince. She wants reparations over that senile fucker not paying her what he signed for in the NDA after all the fucked up shit he did to her. She's not trying to prove other people knew exactly what McMahon was doing. WWE is not going to trial and doesn't have to prove anything in this case.

If WWE is ever involved in a case regarding these abuses, it more than likely will have more than 1 victim that takes them to court and it's gonna be a slew of more evidence, so who knows how viable a defense they could mount.

All I know is that Vince has a history of fucked up behavior, and the amount of NDA's he made women sign just in the last few years tells you he was unhinged, and who knows for how long. At least from my experience investigating this type of stuff (albeit from a different country), the tight knit circle of the abuser always knows. At best they know very little because they don't wanna know the details and convince themselves "that's just who (the abuser) is, it can't be THAT bad", but they know.

WWE are named litigants in the suit, and the filing directly alleges that WWE is complicit because the defendant believes high level people were or should have been aware of what was being done to her. As I said, it would not be surprising if that were true (and cynicism where big companies are concerned is basically always warranted), but the evidence of such is rather thinner in that particular document than the evidence against Vince and the presumable evidence against Ace and Brock. The behavior the other execs are described as engaging is equally consistent with people understanding and side-eyeing her as being an unqualified sugar baby that Vince got a bullshit job for as it is with people knowing that Vince was entombing her in a labyrinth of rape and degradation. I doubt that we will actually find out a lot of this stuff because I imagine the parties will settle before it ever gets to the discovery phase, but hopefully things start to clear up as other wronged and abused parties step forward.

[Shrike02]

I will fully read all the publicly available documents but I"ll just say there's some confusion in this thread about who is morally or legally culpable of XYZ, above and beyond whether criminal charges are filed. There are many many unknown facts and a criminal prosecution has a much higher burden of proof than a civil suit.

One thing is assuredly clear to me, however. It's that many more victims may well come forward.

[El-P]

People who retired last year include Jerry McDevitt and Kevin Dunn.

Timing.

[Dav'oh]

4 hours ago, sek69 said:

what are they supposed to say? I'm sure everyone in WWE has been told to stfu because they don't want this to be the main topic of discussion on the weekend of their #2 show of the year,

So...they can talk about it on Monday, after the....no, that doesn't work, because RAW is on. And it's the Road to WrestleMania, can't overshadow that. See the problem here?

As for what are they meant to say? The verbiage doesn't really matter, they just have to say SOMETHING. A simple condemnation of the alleged perpetrator and their actions and an expression of sympathy for the alleged victim.

[Al]

12 hours ago, El-P said:

People who retired last year include Jerry McDevitt and Kevin Dunn.

Timing.

McDevitt was clearly addressed in the lawsuit though not directly named. He comes off as quite a scumbag too:

[sek69]

Just thinking how the whole "make Trish bark like a dog" segment now somehow looks even worse in retrospect, which I didn't think was possible.

[El-P]

23 minutes ago, sek69 said:

Just thinking how the whole "make Trish bark like a dog" segment now somehow looks even worse in retrospect, which I didn't think was possible.

Yup. This one really came back in a vivid way too.

EVERYTHING looks worse. The entire WWE history, which wasn't exactly stellar anyway, is completely stained. It's rotten to the core, and it always was, it's now very well established.

More questions : what did Ari Emmanuel know exactly when he got Vince back on the board and put him back in charge ? What does Bruce Pritchard knows about the last 40 years ? Will he keep on delivering the fun facts and impersonations on his shitty podcast after this ? Are we gonna get any reactions from people who worked with Vince closely for years or is everybody a spineless piece of shit coward ? Austin ? Foley ? Bret ? Anyone ? Hello ? 

[sek69]

4 minutes ago, El-P said:

More questions : what did Ari Emmanuel know when he got Vince back on the board and put him back in charge ? What does Bruce Pritchard knows about the last 40 years ? Will he keep on delivering the fun facts and impersonations on his shitty podcast after this ? Are we gonna get any reactions from people who worked with Vince closely for years or is everybody a spineless piece of shit coward ? Austin ? Foley ? Bret ? Anyone ? Hello ? 

The most charitable defense for Ari is all he knew is Vince has a bunch of NDAs, which if you are doing a billion dollar deal with someone like that you'd think at the bare minimum you'd ask what's up with those.

As far as Bruce, not only am I sure he knows every detail that went on I'm fairly certain he's one of the Unnamed WWE Corporate Employees in the lawsuit. I wouldn't be surprised if his podcast goes silent for a while, at least it should if he's smart (or his lawyer is smart enough to have him STFU while this plays out).

 

[El-P]

13 minutes ago, sek69 said:

The most charitable defense for Ari is all he knew is Vince has a bunch of NDAs, which if you are doing a billion dollar deal with someone like that you'd think at the bare minimum you'd ask what's up with those.

Yes. And I have a very hard time believing it, much like Lesveque is lying his ass off when he says he hasn't red the lawsuit.

What I want is Dark Side of the Ring stop making episodes about Brutus Beefcake and investigate on the years where Laurinaitis was made head of talent relation, years where WWE recruited young swimsuit models to be talent, and even made it part of their TV content. The subtext is horrifying, especially when you think about Ashley Massaro. What happened to her during the Tributes to the Troops event that led to her taking her own life at 39 ? Why was Jerry Lawler, who's been involved with accusation of rape on underage girls, the star color guy for years ? What did JR knew ? Speak the fuck up, people. 

[sek69]

Sadly the Plane Ride from Hell episode made sure they'll never be able to get anyone on camera do discuss anything more than how much coke did Brother Bruti do.

[NintendoLogic]

Psychiatrists would have a field day picking apart the psychosexual subtext of so much past WWE TV. Vince's childhood by all accounts was fucked-up beyond belief and the trauma it inflicted frequently manifested itself in the product he put out. That doesn't excuse or mitigate his crimes by any means, but it does provide something of an explanation.

[KawadaSmile]

Without even getting into things like multiple segments involving people getting their faces shoved in his bare ass, he feuded with God and was out there saying the n-word on TV just because he could.

 

[TheDuke]

Its sick remembering that Vince was a character in some of those "WWE meets Scooby-Doo/Hanna-Barberra characters" cartoons that were made for kids. Like do you think Vince would have been sending some of those text messages in between recording lines from the studio?

[DMJ]

I'm not going to stop watching current WWE or anything - I rarely watch the TV anyway, never go to live events, don't buy any of the merch, I just keep up through forums like this and watching the PLEs - but watching the Rumble, as the show began, I caught myself thinking, "Hey, Michael Cole has always come off a little bit like a creep to me."

There's no evidence - at least that I know of - that Cole is at all a creep. But, right now, there's a "guilt by association" cloud over the show at times, at least for me. Cole, happily married but traveling constantly, looks like the exact guy that Vince would send unsolicited nudes to as a laugh (and to stroke his own ego). And so my mind is made up that Cole at least knew that Vince was using his power and privilege to fuck women in exchange for fake jobs and that he'd probably done it countless times before. 

Based on what I read about Vince's collection of sex toys and his names for them, I have almost no doubt that his fascination with Shawn Michaels in the 1990s, which raised questions even at the time, was the basis of some sort of bedroom fantasy. 

Its ridiculously unfair because I have no reason to believe Michael Cole or Shawn Michaels were involved in his debauchery, but certain characters and personalities are now striking me as either enablers, cowards, or potential accomplices.

I felt the same thing when I saw Nattie come out at #1. She's often been presented as this "den mother" of the WWE's women's roster, but just like the Undertaker being the "respected" "locker room leader" during a stretch that was filled with scandals and bad behavior, its hard to believe she hasn't been privy to a whole bunch of gossip that the company would rather stay secret.

Oh, and if Vince was sharing shit with Brock to curry loyalty and form a bond based on mutual secrets, I'm thinking the Deadman was hip to at least some of Vince's escapades (most likely the ones that Vince wanted these people to know about and wanted to brag about, but potentially not the most sickening and damning ones).*

* I don't think Vince McMahon wanted it to be known that he's into scat and that he's turned on by racist tropes involving black men or that he likes to roleplay as Brock Lesnar to engage in rough sex. Even if his partner was an enthusiastic participant (which, I don't think this woman was), these are the kind of kinks you don't usually promote to casual friends or your son-in-law. 

But just like grooming these women, I'm guessing Vince groomed a tight circle of fellow sickos (seemingly Laurenaitis and his physical trainer) to engage in these acts with him, a slightly larger circle of people who knew what was going on and were willing to look away (even as Vince most likely shared pics and vids with them), and then a continuous amount of circles of various degrees of real knowledge and participation going further and further out. That's how predators like this operate. 

[El-P]

Funny. Since I don't watch WWE, Micheal Cole's name totally eluded my thoughts. But yeah. He's been the #1 announcing guy for ever now, and has been around since the late 90's.

Michaels was a creep in the 90's. Hell, he was partner with Marty Jannetty, and you just have to listen to old RF Videos shoot interview to get some horrors stories that were "funny" back in the days, about dropping drugs in "rat's" drink and dispose of them. 

MAGATaker. Who are we kidding. One of the closest guy to McMahon, who loved when men were real gun-carrying men and who's years as "respected locker room leader" role were the years of wrestling court, Randy Orton harassing divas and JBL and Benoit hazing people left and right.

There's no way you can think about WWE's history outside of this entire prism right now of who were involved, who knew and covered, who vaguely knew, and who were too far and removed from the bullshit to know about it.

[Robert S]

6 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Psychiatrists would have a field day picking apart the psychosexual subtext of so much past WWE TV. Vince's childhood by all accounts was fucked-up beyond belief and the trauma it inflicted frequently manifested itself in the product he put out. That doesn't excuse or mitigate his crimes by any means, but it does provide something of an explanation.

After reading the Abraham's book about Vince and the interviews she did w.r.t. Vince's childhood and adolesence I would be careful to believe VInce about anything reg. that time period, he is a very unreliable narrator. His personal version of his history seems to be full of exaggerations and telling stories of others as his own. I have no doubt that he experienced physical and verbal abuse as a child, though if it was beyond the typical level of abuse the average child had to deal with growing up in the 50ies, who knows. Same goes for the sexual abuse part. It could be that everything he said for example in the Penthouse interview is true, but it might as well be pure fiction.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, DMJ said:

Michael Cole

Anyone remember that bizarre segment with Michael Cole and Heidenreich? Yikes!

[The Man in Blak]

I'm not really expecting anything from the wrestlers or the announcers because all of them, even Brock, can simply say that they never had or can't remember a situation where Vince showed them pics - there's not going to be a way to prove an in-person conversation like that. Any response other than that basically concedes that they've been complicit in covering this up for a long time and nobody's going to sign up for that -- I'm expecting a lot of "no ideas" and "can't believes" from these people.

The people in power, however, have some answering to do because it's hard to believe that Vince could have done this at this scale and for this long without anyone knowing. John Laurinaitus is already called out in the suit, but Bruce Prichard, Kevin Dunn, and Paul Levesque (at a minimum) need to do more than simply say that "they haven't read the lawsuit yet."