Following the major announcement that WWE will be sold to Endeavor to merge with UFC and make a new publicly traded sports and entertainment company, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and WWE Chairman Vince McMahon sat down with CNBC’s Squawk in the Box on Monday morning.
McMahon, who retired from the company in July 2022 in the face of sexual misconduct scandals that proved he used company money to pay off multiple victims, returned to the Board of Directors in January 2023 to help lead the charge on a potential sale of the company. McMahon also settled a lawsuit brought forth by Rita Chatterton, a former WWE referee who claims McMahon raped her in the 1980s. The payout was undisclosed but is said to be a multi-million dollar settlement.
When asked about the allegations, McMahon had this to say:
“I’ve made mistakes, obviously, personally and professionally through my 50-year career. I’ve owned up to every single one of them and then moved on. I’m not sure of the legacy stuff. I’m not going to write it. I don’t know. I want to say, as someone who had an extraordinary amount of fun, great passion for what they did, and wound up with the biggest deal he’s ever done in his (Emanuel’s) life.”
It should be noted that it was recently revealed through SEC filings that McMahon paid the company back the $17.5 million he used for hush money.
McMahon was also asked if he will be involved with the creative direction of WWE moving forward:
“Yes and no. On a higher level, yes. In the weeds, which I always loved to get in the weeds in the past, no. Can’t do that.”
In 2019, Vince McMahon hired Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff to be the Creative Directors of Raw and SmackDown respectively as he couldn’t “be in the weeds” anymore. McMahon would return to “the weeds” creatively after a few months. Both Heyman and Bischoff would be removed from those roles.
You can view the full interview by clicking here.
Credit to Fightful for the transcriptions from Squawk in the Box.