Endeavor combined UFC and WWE into TKO Holdings Inc., which no longer seems so great for UFC now that WWE is embroiled in a growing sex trafficking scandal.
Vince McMahon’s resignation from TKO Group Holdings may be just the beginning of a larger sweep to remove the former WWE mogul’s influence from the pro wrestling company.
McMahon resigned over the weekend after a lawsuit filed by a former WWE employee accused him of sexual assault and trafficking. The WWE was also sued, with the lawsuit asserting that several high-profile employees not only knew about the situation but helped facilitate it and even participated in it over the years.
This is one lawsuit from one woman. Reports have over a dozen women who alleged similar behavior from McMahon. Roughly $20 million in company funds were used to pay hush money to individuals involved with the WWE executive.
One has to wonder how horrible their stories are, considering McMahon offered this woman $3 million to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Another woman received $7 million.
It all adds up to a situation where Vince’s many skeletons could keep flowing for years, keeping the WWE and TKO Holdings Inc. (and UFC by association) in the news for all the wrong reasons. Despite a ‘positive’ week of business that saw WWE sign a massive and potentially landscape-changing broadcast deal with Netflix, TKO’s stock dropped way down with all the McMahon news.
So what will parent company Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel do? According to the well-reputed PWInsider, he’ll eradicate anyone and anything that could continue to harm his business.
Their source noted this is “not just about a company he purchased, but a company that has been employing his own daughter at WWE HQ for several years.”
It’s true, Ari Emanuel’s daughter Ashlee has been working at WWE since June 2021, initially as a Creative Writing Assistant for RAW and more recently as an Executive Assistant.
Anyone who thinks Endeavor won’t clear house “‘don’t know Emanuel’ and they don’t understand how ‘ferociously he will eradicate’ anything that needs to be taken care of to protect his businesses,” PWInsider continued. “The same source noted that if Emanuel was willing to walk away from Saudi Arabia investments years ago without ‘blinking an eye,’ he’ll have no problem ‘removing anything and anyone still remaining’ that could potentially hurt or impact WWE’s business going forward.”
The big problem Endeavor has is that McMahon’s tentacles run deep into WWE. He’s been running the show since the beginning and no one makes it to a top position in the company without his say-so. If you try to cut out all the rot left by Vince McMahon, there may not be much left when you’re done. But at least WWE can start again clean, and Endeavor can avoid accusations they carried on the cover-up when new allegations inevitably come out.