Former UFC and WWE champion Ronda Rousey has her doubts that Vince McMahon’s influence has been fully removed from WWE after he recently resigned.
After a lawsuit laid out horrific allegations of human trafficking and sexual violence by Vince McMahon, the WWE head was forced to resign as executive chairman of TKO Group Holdings, the media conglomerate that houses both WWE and UFC. But is Vince really gone for real this time?
Ronda Rousey has her doubts.
Following a five year stint in combat sports that revolutionized women’s MMA and saw female divisions added to the UFC, Rousey moved on to try her hand at pro wrestling. “Rowdy” competed at the highest levels during her two runs with the WWE, ultimately leaving in October 2023.
She’s been mostly silent in the run-up to the release of a second autobiography, Our Fight, which is set to come out in April. But she did make her first tweet in two months to address the McMahon controversy.
Bruce Prichard is basically Vince’s avatar, if he’s still around Vince still has a hand in the business. Vince was still running things through Bruce when he was “gone” before
— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) January 27, 2024
“Bruce Prichard is basically Vince’s avatar, if he’s still around Vince still has a hand in the business,” Rousey wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Vince was still running things through Bruce when he was ‘gone’ before.”
Prichard is considered one of the most powerful people in the WWE not named McMahon, and his official title is Executive Director of RAW and SmackDown. When Vince McMahon was initially forced out as the head of WWE in 2022 for spending $20 million in company cash on hush money for women he’d allegedly abused, Prichard was placed in the role as head of talent relations.
Many (including Rousey, it seems) considered this a move that allowed Vince to continue calling the shots on creative. Every time it was claimed that McMahon was no longer in control of the company, it turned out he was still running things from the shadows. Several months after his ‘departure’ he staged a board coup to regain power, steering WWE to a multi-billion dollar merger with UFC parent company Endeavor.
What WWE upper management knew and didn’t know about McMahon’s sexual exploits is going to be a hot topic of discussion as this lawsuit gets going. There’s many inside the sports entertainment company that are anticipating Endeavor will ‘sweep out’ WWE brass that were too close to McMahon.
It’s worth remembering that this is after one lawsuit from one woman — the allegations she made (some backed up by extensive text messages) are truly disgusting and implicate numerous unnamed employees and wrestlers in the organization. With McMahon spending tens of millions to buy the silence of others, what other skeletons will fall out of the closet?
And how will Endeavor look if the people they keep around are revealed to have known about or participated in McMahon’s degeneracy?