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The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon that Vince McMahon, who remains the primary stockholder of World Wrestling Entertainment, is "plotting" a return to power in advance of pursuing a sale of the entire company, leveraging his power as stockholder to force himself back into power.
The article states, "Mr. McMahon, who has majority voting power through his ownership of WWE’s Class-B stock, has told the company that he is electing himself and two former co-presidents and directors, Michelle Wilson and George Barrios, to the board, the people said. The move to reinstate Mr. McMahon, which the board previously rebuffed, and the others will require three current directors to vacate their positions."
WWE, at the time run by McMahon, terminated Barrios and Wilson in January 2020. They have since launched their own investment firm, Isos Capital Management. Brian Flinn, another former WWE Exec, was later named Managing Director of Isos.
The article states that McMahon sent the company's current Board of Directors a letter last month, "detailing his desire to return to the company he ran for four decades, to help spearhead a strategic-review process, the people said. Mr. McMahon believes there is a narrow window to kick off a sales process because WWE’s media rights—including for its flagship programs “Raw” and “SmackDown”—are about to be renegotiated, according to the people."
In July 2022, McMahon "retired" in the wake of WSJ's reporting on a number of payoffs made to women he was personally involved with. An internal investigation ordered by the company's Board of Directors found that while McMahon used personal funds to make the payoffs, they should have been recorded as company expenditures. The investigation officially ended in November 2022.
WSJ is reporting the Board of Directors responded to McMahon that they were "prepared to initiate a review process and would welcome working with him on it. However, it said it unanimously agreed that Mr. McMahon’s return to the business wouldn’t be in shareholders’ best interest, according to people familiar with the letters."
The story notes that WWE's Board asked McMahon, "to confirm his commitment to repay expenses incurred by WWE related to an investigation of the allegations and requested that he agree not to return to the company during government probes of the matter, the people said. Mr. McMahon said in response that he remains willing to continue working to complete any reimbursement for reasonable expenses related to the investigation, to the extent they aren’t covered by insurance, but he declined to agree to not return to the company."
The WSJ article also stated that McMahon has told the Board of Directors that unless he has "direct involvement" as Executive Chairman "from the outset of a strategic review", McMahon would not support or approve "any media-rights deal or sale."
The article notes that it is unknown where this would leave Stephanie McMahon. The article does not mention them, but it obviously also would be unknown where a Vince McMahon return to power in terms of day to day operations of WWE would leave Paul Levesque and Nick Khan, much less the talents and behind the scenes staff who have returned to work for the company since McMahon's exit.
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