This past Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal had uncovered a massive scandal in WWE. Vince McMahon allegedly hired a female employee at $100,000 and began an illicit affair with her, giving her a raise to $200,000 and handing her off to his head of talent, John Laurinaitis to use as he saw fit.
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Needless to say, anyone and everyone associated with wrestling no matter the promotion or level of fandom is shocked on multiple levels. While details of the WWE Board Of Directors' investigation are still under wraps, there are a lot of 'what if' kind of conjectures the entire wrestling universe is currently making.
7 What If Vince McMahon’s Career Is Over?
In the current climate of the world, there is a very good chance that Vince McMahon effigies are being burned somewhere. But is the Chairman’s career over? Is he going to be canceled? Obviously if he’s guilty, it’s goodbye Vince McMahon.
But if it turns out that not much can be proven to back these claims, McMahon may get to hold onto his position for a little while longer.
6 Is Johnny Ace’s Career Done?
Heading off into conjecture land will be the entire theme of this list, but yes no matter how the chips fall, Ace could be done as Head Of Talent Relations. These are serious allegations and even if found innocent, it will be real hard to win the trust of the talent back.
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Especially when you’re known for being a little off-putting when it comes to female relationships, after all this is the man who supposedly spearheaded the models over athletes movement post-Attitude Era. There is already a ton of chatter online that he will be the fall guy for this incident.
5 What If Releases Were Made To Allocate Funds?
This one is a little more far-fetched, but what if at least a portion of the 100+ releases since 2020 were a result of allocating funds for this affair? However, if any of the company funds were used for anything involving these accusations, that is actually terrible for the company and its stockholders.
It could end up with a lot of possible investors and business partners scrambling to try and get out of their contracts. Law firms have also started to come out of the wood work to investigate the "breach of fiduciary duties."
4 What If More People Come Forward?
When there are allegations like this of any kind on any level, they are serious and need to completely vetted before legal and police action is taken. As the saying goes, where there's smoke, there's fire. If more victims come forward, this egregious and honestly despicable act can get a lot worse for wrestling fans.
The wrestling world’s largest company that has been pushing forth a huge community activism PR angle and all sorts of “look how great we are,” type of promos could get taken down in a hurry from these allegations. That hurry gets expedited if more victims come forward. This actually isn’t even the first time allegations of this nature for the Chairman. In 1992, former referee Rita Maria stepped forward. Over a decade later, a worker at a tanning bar in Boca Raton, Florida had accused Vinny Mac of harassment prior to that year’s Royal Rumble.
3 What If Stephanie Left Because Of This?
The news is so fresh and wrestling fans, no matter the story, love to get stuck in the minutia of it. So much in fact, that the stories almost become an angle themselves. “What if Triple H leaked the story?” “Is Nick Khan running WWE?” “Is WWE for sale?” One of the more interesting and plausible possibilities is that somehow Stephanie McMahon knew about this.
Or she found out and dipped as fast as possible, using her family as a smokescreen for why she really left, since she might not want to deal with the fallout.
2 What If Sasha Got/Gets Released Because Of This?
Just a few hours after this major news broke, another big piece of news has hit the internet. Depending on whom you believe, Sasha Banks may or may not have asked for and received her release. According to a few news sites, The Boss’ lawyers have been trying to get a release for a few weeks now since she left.
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Perhaps with this news coming out, somehow the contract (and a whole host of other contracts) could be null in void on some technicality clause, or something pertaining to abuse of power.
1 What Happens To WWE Moving Forward?
Assuming the very worst case scenario, Nick Kahn would certainly stand to assume more direct control over the business. Meanwhile, Bruce Prichard and Kevin Dunn would be the primary duo overseeing TV and Creative - Prichard of course has been Vince’s right-hand man for nearly 30 years in total (minus a “hiatus” here and there). Dunn, the left-hand man who has had ties to the company since days of Vincent J. McMahon.
As for the never ending train of marketing and TV partnerships - that would in theory be dealt with on a case by case basis. Entities that want to do business with the company will, others will try to drop their deals with them. Ultimately, time will tell how much, if at all the allegations will hurt the overall product and cash flow of the company.
