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World Wrestling Entertainment found itself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons this week. The week began with news that Randy Orton, who was written off of television with a legitimate back injury, could be out for the rest of 2022. That was devastating to Vince McMahon & co. as the main event for this year’s SummerSlam was set to feature the 14-time champion going up against the current Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns. Orton’s injury was just the latest setback for WWE as the other main challenger to Roman’s championship, Cody Rhodes, is also out with torn pec injury that will keep him out up to 9 months.
Reports began to circulate around Tuesday that Sasha Banks has been released by WWE. Banks, along with Naomi, walked out of WWE prior to the May 16th episode on RAW due to creative differences and lack of direction for the women’s division in general and Banks & Naomi in particular. Their walkout caused quite the firestorm and brought to light the long running problem of WWE booking. Well it seems that “multiple sources” today are confirming that Banks has indeed been granted her release. Banks will leave WWE with a Hall of Fame resume that includes being an NXT Women’s champion, a 5-time RAW Women’s champion, SmackDown Women’s champion, a 3-time WWE Women’s Tag Team champion and only the 4th Women’s Grand Slam champion in the company’s history(the others are Bayley, Charlotte and Asuka). Banks, real name Mercedes Varnado, will obviously be the biggest free agent in the industry if she chooses to continue wrestling. A career in Hollywood also awaits given her star cameo turn in Star Wars’ The Mandalorian.
Those two stories would’ve been enough for WWE but news broke on Wednesday about a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal. In that article it states the WWE board of directors is investigating a secret $3M settlement from Vince McMahon to a former employee for her silence. This scandal is just the latest one in a long, sordid history of Vince McMahon since he took over WWE from his father back in 1982. Twitter users began detailing some of the on & off screen scandals of McMahon:
Two days later Vince McMahon would voluntarily “step down” as the CEO of WWE. Stephanie McMahon, who took her own leave of absence from WWE and was publicly trashed about her job as CBO, is now the interim CEO during the course of the investigation. My guys over at Good Karma Wrestling talked about Vince’s ‘departure’:
On the same day Vince would ‘step down’, WWE revealed McMahon would make an appearance on SmackDown in the midst of the controversy. What transpired was the most arrogant, tone-deaf moment of Vince McMahon’s career:
Vince’s appearance on SmackDown was his way of flipping everyone off. The fact he is still in control of day-to-day operations basically says WWE is and will not be taking these allegations seriously. It wreaks of a man who has money & power and feels he is above everything… and everyone. This may have worked in years past but we are in 2022 and WWE is a publicly traded company with plenty of corporate sponsors who are going to feel a bit squeamish about this latest scandal. Good Karma Wrestling’s Jonathan Hood broke it down:
To top it all off, last night’s SmackDown ended with a PPV-quality main event that saw Roman Reigns outlast Matt Riddle to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal championship. Reigns, after declaring there’s no one left, was interrupted by, wait for it, Brock Lesnar. Brock Lesnar challenging Roman Reigns, AGAIN, for the title at SummerSlam just means Vince McMahon and WWE have no vision and no way of building up stars to make the company thrive. Considering fans just saw this match at WrestleMania 38, WWE felt the need to run this back when no one is really asking for it. This will be the 9th time since 2015 that these two have faced off in the main event of a PPV(2 of those matches were a triple threat & a fatal 4-way).
WWE, despite making boatloads of money, is probably in the worst position in quite some time from a creative standpoint. The company’s insistence on focusing on 4-6 wrestlers at the expense of their entire roster is why fans are looking to other promotions for entertainment. The genesis of their problems continues to be that Vince McMahon must control all. It is an audience of one… and it’s that audience of one that has once again landed him in very hot water.
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