Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

shane just leaving the company for like a decade looks slightly different now.

On 2/8/2024 at 12:51 AM, SirEdger said:

I buy that for Vince, no doubt about it, but before Stephanie left for the 2nd time, the word going around was that she was universally loved by everyone. So, where's the truth here?

it could very well be both, Steph could have been a worse person in her 20s and as she got older she just mellowed out. Steph famously called that writer to fire him like 3 times after all

[El-P]

30 minutes ago, Mr Wrestling 2000 said:

shane just leaving the company for like a decade looks slightly different now.

The timing of Stephy's departure ad comeback and departure again are even more fishy. What did she know ? The fact she led that "Thank you Vince" when he "retired" the first time remains one of the most appalling thing ever.

Although they have done a really good job of getting the attention away from it with the Cody/Rock debacle/angle, this ain't going anywhere. Another bombshell dropping later this year around Mania time would not surprise me. People acting like everything is fine now because Vince is gone are in denial.

[El-P]

Bret Hart denounces Vince McMahon. He's really the first one of the major stars who worked closely with him to do so. Good for him.

Also :

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epv78z/ashley-massaro-wwe-vince-mcmahon-sexual-divas

She had accused Vince on preying on Divas, including herself after the Playboy shots. After she refused Vince's advances, he personally wrote some of her promos to make her look bad, to the point even Micheal Hayes reacted with "You're not saying this ! Who the fuck wrote this ?" when he saw some of the scripts.

Kevin Dunn was apparently one of the person on that meeting where she was told not to talk about being raped (aka, "a bad experience"), because that could damage WWE's relationship with the US military.

[pmo]

5 hours ago, El-P said:

The fact she led that "Thank you Vince" when he "retired" the first time remains one of the most appalling thing ever.

TBF watching that the clip the crowd were already chanting it and it came off more like “fine get it out of your system” rather “I’m honoring my father.”  Not a great look to be sure either way but it wasn’t enthusiastic.  My guess is she knew enough to be horrified but probably wasn’t willing to turn in her own father.  
But this is going to be bad and get worse.  FBI will probably use roll up tactics to get all of the underlings to flip to bring McMahon down. 

[sek69]

13 hours ago, pmo said:

TBF watching that the clip the crowd were already chanting it and it came off more like “fine get it out of your system” rather “I’m honoring my father.”  Not a great look to be sure either way but it wasn’t enthusiastic.  My guess is she knew enough to be horrified but probably wasn’t willing to turn in her own father.  
But this is going to be bad and get worse.  FBI will probably use roll up tactics to get all of the underlings to flip to bring McMahon down. 

I remember at the time watching it and her looking more like someone who just had a loved one pass thinking that it seemed kind of melodramatic for just a retirement, albeit a forced one. Now I wonder if she found out the gory details (who wants to know about a parent's normal sex life let alone Vince's?) and just had to come face to face with just how big of a piece of shit her father is? I would have to believe that would rattle someone to the core.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Stuff is leaking out now about why Shane McMahon and his pervy, old scumbag old man had issues. Shane, according to these rumors, would try to corral his old man from being a total scumbag . We've all shit on Shane for various reasons, and he's definitely still a right wing dope. But now that all the puzzle pieces are falling around us, it seems like Shane's issues with his old man are because Shane isn't a piece of shit. 

[pmo]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

I remember at the time watching it and her looking more like someone who just had a loved one pass thinking that it seemed kind of melodramatic for just a retirement, albeit a forced one. Now I wonder if she found out the gory details (who wants to know about a parent's normal sex life let alone Vince's?) and just had to come face to face with just how big of a piece of shit her father is? I would have to believe that would rattle someone to the core.

Yeah it definitely was not a “normal” reaction and I got the vibe of like something’s off here.  I think you might be on the right track though.   My guess would be that everyone in the company knew that Vince had girlfriends/hook ups on the payroll but didn’t know the extent of horrific shit he was pulling.  Most probably felt that while not ethical or right they were consenting adults, the Mcmahons were separated, and it’s Vince’s company.  I sure that’s the way a guy like Emmanuel saw things and why it didn’t flag.

Vince was also probably careful who he shared that side of him with initially.  So far it’s inner circle guys, like Dunn and Ace, or those who wouldn’t be bothered by those things, like Hayes.  Vince probably was sharp enough to not to pull that shit in front of people would be have a problem with it (Steph or say Foley).  Also he probably wouldn’t have shared it with people that could have used it as a leverage (like a Cornette or Heyman).  The key point I think of is from the JJ Dillon/Cornette shoot where JJ talks about being sick of Vince’s lifestyle(even sans the creepy shit) and Vince is like “Oh you don’t like Vince anymore”  JJ wasn’t going to drop the dime on Vince, Cornette would have.

As his facilities have declined he’s gotten less and less careful and the veil came off.  

[El-P]

Prichard has *nothing* to say because there's a lawsuit going on. When even Seth Rollins is giving a less corporate bullshit answer (ya know, saying about how disgusting the entire ordeal is), you know how deep in the mud you must be. The fact that on this week's episode of the podcast they revisit Survivor Series 93 all of shows, you know, the one Jerry Lawler could not attend because he was accused of raping underage girls, is amazingly and sadly ironic. The smell of their audience right now... 

[Sweet Brown Koko]

When it rains, it pours……

From the New York Times:

William Albert “Billy Jack” Haynes Jr., who in the 1980s competed in the World Wrestling Federation, was arrested in the killing of his wife at a home in Portland, Ore., on Thursday after a standoff with police.

The authorities publicly identified Mr. Haynes, 70, on Saturday, days after the police said he shot and killed his wife, Janette Becraft, 85, in the Lents neighborhood of southeast Portland.

[pmo]

Sounds like she had dementia and he was her primary caregiver.  Knowing his mental state and the massive challenges of caring for a dementia patient I can’t exactly say I’m surprised.  Very sad situation.

[flyonthewall2983]

Not sure why were discussing it here

[El-P]

 

And people wonder why she "apologized" later. Imagine the power dynamics at play, to make this woman who has been raped and left behind and intimidated by executives of the company to actually *apologize* to them for making the company look bad. Also, Stephanie McMahon-Levesque is just as big a piece of trash as the others. And who exactly were the other executives in the room that day. And who is the one who picked up her limp body from the place she was raped ? That's another insane part of this story. And of course, what about the military rapist ? All of this certainly did not stop WWE from going back to "support the troops".

What a shit show.

But hey, Mania 40 is gonna be the biggest ever, right ? Well, it's been built by these people. It's their legacy. *vomit*

[Dav'oh]

1 hour ago, El-P said:

Well, it's been built by these people

Cody: If I can see the WrestleMania logo, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of rapists

Cole: The Road to WrestleMania is paved with sexual assault

Steph: NDAs are the future of philanthropy

[NintendoLogic]

I've said in the past that some of the details of Massaro's allegations seemed superficially implausible enough that a degree of skepticism was warranted. But that's no excuse for not conducting a legitimate investigation. The fact that WWE immediately went into cover-up mode is the most damning aspect of all. It's not that they doubted her story, it's that they thought it had to be swept under the rug regardless of whether or not it was true.

[Embrodak]

Shielding military personnel from their own code of justice is insane and a wildly consequential act, even if it was done for entirely cynical business-type reasons. One wonders how many other companies have kiboshed reports of abuse and ill-treatment  by military personnel, sexual or non-, in order to stay in the good graces of their military benefactors and farm good publicity from them. It’s not hard to imagine a lot of situations with similar logics playing out all over the place.

[flyonthewall2983]

Especially if you have the hard-on for uncle sam Vince likely had

[sek69]

Especially if you consider how much sexual abuse that has been found to been covered up inside the military. It probably didn't take too much convincing from WWE to keep this under wraps. That whole situation was the perfect storm to make sure a story like this never got out.

[Timbo Slice]

Literally read a friend’s dissertation that she wrote six years ago about sexual abuse being reported in the military (or lack thereof) so yeah, this is easy to sweep under the rug. 

[Dav'oh]

Paul Roma with new allegations.

"Speaking on NewsNation, former WWE talent Paul Roma has claimed he is aware of allegations against Vince McMahon that are worse than what the 78-year-old has been accused of by Janel Grant. 

NewsNation's Ashleigh Banfield noted she has spoken to another former WWE talent in Mario Mancini, who claimed he had heard about an incident even worse than that Janel Grant alleged in her lawsuit. Roma then stated: "I really shouldn't right now but yes I do know what it is and it is worse." 

Roma added: "Just that Mario and I are really surprised. We spoke about it. We're surprised that no one has come forward but on the flip side, I think they're of an age now they may be married and have kids and they don't want to open Pandora's box. I can't blame them."

WWE executives “put you in really, really bad situations, especially once you started making some money. You find out that your job’s on the line. Either do it or get fired, and I witnessed quite a few that walked away. Money wasn’t worth it to go that route.”

Roma said he doesn’t know which WWE executives were involved, but he alleged that his former partner was asked to engage in “sexual favors.”

[flyonthewall2983]

With the promise of new allegations

[Strummer]

that account from Massaro's friend is tough to read.  Hopefully that puts an end to the Stephanie is the "nice" McMahon talk.  Meltz says a lot of the talent view Stephanie differently now after hearing about that

[C.S.]

10 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

Paul Roma with new allegations.

I genuinely thought Paul Roma died years ago. I guess I somehow confused him with Tom Zenk. I'm glad "Pretty" Paul is still around. A genuinely underrated wrestler and actually one of the more talented Horsemen if you rank them all.

[Embrodak]

The Rock has an immense amount of cancellable material from his original WWF/E run. I guess he’s proved that there is an immense amount of money and attention to be mined from people who genuinely do not care about such things, but this “Rock smacking people around verbally” playlist WWE posted just months ago features him doing an extended ableism at Booker T.

[sek69]

It helps that what he did back then wouldn't even crack the top ten most objectionable things that happened in the Attitude Era.

[KawadaSmile]

Yikes