A professional wrestling bombshell dropped Friday afternoon, as it was announced that Vince McMahon retires. McMahon announced his retirement stating, “At 77, time for me to retire. Thank you, WWE Universe. Then. Now. Forever. Together.” This would send shockwaves through the WWE and AEW universes.
Vince McMahon Retires
Last month, the Wall Street Journal released a story about how Vince McMahon paid three million dollars in hush money to a woman after having sexual relations. Another story came out saying that McMahon paid 12 million dollars in hush money to multiple women who signed Non-Disclosure Agreements.
It was also said that he would fire women who did not go along with his advances. That all led up to the abrupt retirement of McMahon on Friday.
Brock Lesnar Leaves SmackDown Following McMahon’s Announcement
The announcement led to Brock Lesnar storming out of the SmackDown locker room. Lesnar, who is scheduled to face Roman Reigns at SummerSlam on July 30th for the WWE Undisputed Championship, is expected to build for that match. He has been quoted as saying “If he’s (Vince) gone, I’m gone” and left TD Garden in Boston. This has been reported by multiple sources.
Vince even asked Brock not to walk out on the WWE and said that “if you walk out on the WWE, you walk out on me and everything I built too.”
Two other casualties in the Vince news are Johnny Laurinaitis and Kevin Dunn, who are both not expected to be coming back to the WWE. Laurinaitis has been on a leave of absence since the first story broke and Kevin Dunn is leaving the company to help his case. McMahon will still be the majority owner of the company, just stepping down from his CEO role. In his place will be his daughter Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and Nick Khan.
Vince McMahon has been in control of the WWE since the mid-1980s. He tore the wrestling territories down and became the biggest wrestling company in the United States and soon to be the world. For almost 40 years, he was the head of the WWE, but not without many controversies along the way. From the steroid scandal of the ’90s to the Chris Benoit scandal in 2007, the hush money scandal is another story to cloud his legacy,
