(Content material Warning: This text accommodates allegations of sexual assault, sexual coercion, and sexual harassment)
On the “Impression” part of its web site, WWE touts its “Be A Star” (Present Tolerance and Respect) anti-bullying program as being developed alongside the Boys and Women Golf equipment of America and the Yale Middle for Emotional Intelligence, and claims the bullying prevention program, which was championed by former WWE exec Stephanie McMahon, “is accessible to 4,300 golf equipment and supplies greater than 4 million kids entry to instruments and training supplies that assist create a secure and inclusive afterschool setting.”
Stopping bullying is, undeniably, an essential trigger, significantly because the worlds of high-speed web entry and unmoderated social media have mixed to take harassment and private torment for teenagers to a complete new degree. However whereas WWE may need needed one of the best for his or her under-18 viewers, it’s changing into more and more obvious that the identical degree of concern didn’t prolong to WWE staff, significantly to the ladies who labored for former WWE co-founder and former Chairman and CEO, Vince McMahon.
Final week, McMahon resigned from his place at WWE, the second time he’s completed so within the final two years, because of allegations of sexual harassment and assault. McMahon has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a criminal offense, however latest studies have claimed that federal regulation enforcement companies are investigating the allegations associated to intercourse trafficking in former WWE paralegal Janel Grant’s federal lawsuit towards McMahon.
Grant’s allegations of assault by the hands of McMahon and former WWE exec John Laurinaitis (the step-father of each Nikki and Brie Garcia — aka “The Bella Twins” — Laurinaitis has denied any wrongdoing and claims he’s additionally a “sufferer” of McMahon) are hair-raising and upsetting, to say the least, however have considerably obscured the institutional reminiscence that this isn’t the primary time we’ve heard “Vince McMahon” and “sexual misconduct” in shut proximity. McMahon was additionally compelled out of the corporate in 2022, after a Wall Avenue Journal report that he had paid $12 million in NDAs to 4 ladies over 16 years, one in every of whom was Grant. The WSJ claims that McMahon additionally paid $7.5 million to a former wrestler who says McMahon coerced her into giving him oral intercourse, after which demoted her when she refused his later advances. Nonetheless one other lady, a WWE contractor, got here ahead with unsolicited nude images she claimed McMahon despatched her whereas sexually harassing her at work. When McMahon initially stepped down within the wake of the WSJ report, his daughter, Stephanie, led the group in a “Thanks, Vince” chant.
For her half, Stephanie McMahon has at all times been a bizarre mixture of “lady energy!” whereas additionally seemingly protecting for the horrible habits of males. She deserves credit score for 2020 ladies’s revolution at WWE, which launched the careers of wrestlers like Becky Lynch, Mercedes Mone (then Sasha Banks), and Charlotte Aptitude. On the identical time, she gleefully cheered the election of former Barstool CEO Erika Ayers Badan (then Erika Nardini) to the corporate’s board of administrators, regardless of her historical past of seemingly not caring about Barstool’s lengthy standing harassment of ladies, which Ayers Badan has been accused of utilizing to her benefit. Present tolerance and respect, certainly. Then once more, Stephanie as soon as needed to quash Vince’s pitch for a storyline the place he was the daddy or her unborn youngster, so I assume all the pieces is relative. Ayers Badan has since left each WWE and Barstool Sports activities.
One factor that appears to change into clearer by the day, although, is that Vince McMahon’s habits was information to nobody. Former wrestler Dutch Mantell spoke on his podcast about rumors of how onerous Vince was on “the Divas,” the title previously used for WWE’s ladies wrestlers, saying, “I did hear how Vince was across the Divas, he would have them typically in a manic state. They’d come out of the room typically with him, shaking, then they might sit within the nook and never speak to anybody. You would inform one thing between them that upset them.” Mantell additionally stated he believes that “much more tales will come out now.” Previous to Grant’s 2024 lawsuit bombshell, former WWE author Vince Russo, who is rarely late to remark when WWE is concerned, stated he wouldn’t think about working for McMahon once more due to “morals and ethics.”
In the meantime, WWE hasn’t precisely impressed with its response to the allegations towards McMahon. If the powers that be at TKO (WWE’s mother or father firm, shaped after they merged with UFC in 2023) thought having Cody Rhodes win the Royal Rumble twice straight and bringing The Rock again for Wrestlemania was sufficient to distract from the allegations towards Vince McMahon, they want to return to the drafting board. Final week, my colleague, Sam Fels, rightfully lit up WWE for dropping the ball on responding to Grant’s lawsuit. Significantly galling was watching WWE’s Chief Artistic Workplace Paul “Triple H” Levesque admit that he hadn’t even learn the lawsuit. The shortcoming of Levesque to reply appropriately to the allegations towards Vince McMahon ought to have been apparent, given his previous penchant for hanging out with Floyd Mayweather and his incapacity to correctly tackle previous allegations of grooming towards former WWE wrestler Velveteen Dream. I assume nothing says “we take sexual assault severely” like working the Cerebral Assasin on the market to not tackle it. A minimum of he wasn’t on a motorbike with Lemmy screaming someplace overhead.
I’ve been important of the “Perspective Period” of WWE, an period many male followers lengthy for a return to, primarily due to its exploitation and remedy of ladies, each within the ring and backstage and out of the general public eye. And regardless of its clarion name to finish bullying by way of “Be A Star,” it appears the demand to deal with others with tolerance and respect doesn’t prolong to the adults at WWE, significantly the ladies. Whereas ending bullying is actually a valiant aim, demonstrating to younger women (and don’t child your self, there are many them watching WWE) that boundaries matter, particularly in terms of speaking about sexual assault and harassment, is equally as imporant. In line with the CDC, “Greater than 4 in 5 feminine rape survivors reported that they have been first raped earlier than age 25 and nearly half have been first raped as a minor (i.e., earlier than age 18). Almost 8 in 10 male rape survivors reported that they have been made to penetrate somebody earlier than age 25 and about 4 in 10 have been first made to penetrate as a minor.”
So how about if we embrace standing as much as undesirable sexual advances and coercion as a part of being a star? And what if WWE prolonged the message about respect and tolerance backstage, as effectively, together with its govt suite. And, whereas they’re at it, possibly get somebody certified to speak about sexual misconduct and intercourse trafficking to speak to children and younger adults concerning the warning indicators? And possibly ship out somebody from the C-Suite who truly learn Grant’s lawsuit and took it severely to deal with followers about what WWE is doing to guarantee that Vince McMahon doesn’t occur to their staff once more.
I can’t consider a greater option to spend Wrestlemania.
