Janel Grant, a former WWE employee, has come forward with allegations of rape and sex trafficking against Vince McMahon, a co-founder of WWE. McMahon has since resigned from his position as TKO Chairperson. The allegations have rocked the world of professional wrestling, but a look at McMahon’s long career indicates these latest revelations fit a pattern of openly misogynistic conduct stretching back decades. Abraham Josephine Riesman, author of Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, joins Edge of Sports for a discussion on the allegations against McMahon and its implications for the sport.
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Transcript
Dave Zirin: Welcome to Edge of Sports, brought to you by The Real News Network. I’m Dave Zirin.
We are going to talk to a journalist and New York Times bestselling author right now. Her name is Abraham Josephine Reisman, and we’re going to talk about her book Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America.
Abraham Josephine Riesman, thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Thanks for having me.
Dave Zirin: Okay, look, the charges against Vince McMahon are so nauseating. I mean rape, sex trafficking, acts of non-consensual degradation. As someone who has studied this man, did any of this surprise even you?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Let me put it this way. When I first read the lawsuit brought by former WWE employee Janelle Grant against Vince McMahon, I was shocked but not surprised. I was shocked at the details because these allegations do seem to describe things that go farther than what we’ve known or at least had allegations about Vince doing in the past.
But it was really a matter of degree rather than distinction between the past allegations and these new ones. It was a matter of those past alleged acts turned up to 11, in many ways, because Vince has a long history of degrading people, and much of that is not an allegation at all.
You can just watch his television program, especially old episodes from around the turn of the last millennium, and you’ll see examples of female wrestlers being forced to get on all fours, strip to their bra and panties, and bark like dogs. That’s the kind of thing that Vince McMahon was not just putting on television but having his workers do.
So seeing these allegations was shocking insofar as the details cannot help but shock a person, but not surprising, necessarily, when you look at the pattern of other allegations in the past.
Dave Zirin: See, you’ve got these two personas, and I want you to try to explain to us or tease out where they’re the same, where they’re different, or does it even matter at this point? You’ve got Vince McMahon, the billionaire impresario of World Wrestling Entertainment who’s been in charge for four decades running this organization, to greater or lesser extents during those four decades.
And then you have his on-screen character, someone one wrestling journalist called maybe the greatest, most important character in the history of professional wrestling. And that character is, of course, The Boss, the ultimate a-hole, the guy who harasses women, who in one plot point sex trafficked his own daughter.
Now at this point, do you see any differences between the person and the character? Does it even matter from what you know of this person’s history? Is this one of those cases of him forgetting who the real person was or is this the real person?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: The contention I make in my book, Ringmaster, is that the second persona you’re describing, the character copyrighted as Mr. McMahon, is, yes, in some ways based on Vince. But in many ways, I see him, that character, that is, as a gross exaggeration of Vince’s father.
Now, Vince’s father, not necessarily known for the sexual stuff, but he was known within wrestling as a guy you didn’t want to cross. And more importantly, his father was a Northeastern rich kid, as opposed to Vince who lived this very bifurcated existence. He didn’t know his birth father until he was 12, and he was raised in poverty in the South.
So part of the image of the Mr. McMahon character is that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth or that he’s always been this patrician Northeasterner. But I think it’s important to note those divergence points where Vince has a very different background than you might expect for a Mr. McMahon.
But when it comes to the allegations and the televised reality of depravity, there’s a lot of overlap there. If we take even a fraction of Janelle Grant’s allegations to be true, it means that Vince McMahon was much closer to the character he was playing when he was degrading women on television than many people thought or gave credit to.
Dave Zirin: I view Vince McMahon, the person behind the camera, as a paleolithic, right-wing bigot, someone who’s never hesitated to use racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia for entertainment purposes to sell his product.
But there have been these areas of progress, like the rise of women wrestlers away from the Divas concept. Does he get credit for any of that or is that other people behind the scenes trying to push this person into the 20th century?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: It’s always hard to say. Vince, when he was in control, always had the last word on virtually all creative decisions. But when it comes to the progress, I think a lot of that is other people.
And what you have to remember is that, yes, it is good that there is more equality, or at least something getting closer to equality among genders in wrestling, at least between cis men and cis women. But women’s wrestling was on the path to becoming as huge in the United States as it was in Japan, where pro wrestling is very big and taken seriously, in the mid 1980s.
You had Wendy Richter, this massively popular female wrestler for Vince’s company, the World Wrestling Federation, who Vince executed what is known as — I hate to use a vulgar term, but it’s the term of art — A screw job on Wendy Richter.
Wendy Richter was getting a bit too big for her breeches, and Vince McMahon, according to Wendy, flipped the script on her and made her lose a match she was supposed to win. And she walked out of the company.
And that kind of thing, that expression of power over women and things of that nature, I think, are more defining of Vince, and really very likely, although you can’t do alternate histories, held back women’s wrestling decades before this recent resurgence.
Dave Zirin: Totally agree with you about that. And for people who don’t remember Wendy Richter, the Rock and Wrestling Connection.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Connection. Yes, she worked with Cyndi Lauper as her manager, captain Lou Albano was her opponent and then her partner. It was a wild time for wrestling and it was very consequential. Wendy Richter was instrumental in that, and she was basically just tossed aside.
And a woman named the Fabulous Moolah, it was her in-ring name, Lillian Ellison, was more or less in charge of women’s wrestling in the country and then in the WWF for a long time. And she had allegations of being a sex trafficker as well. That’s a whole separate story. But wrestling has a lot of exploitation and pain on its underbelly, and it’s not always acknowledged because the product seems so fun.
Dave Zirin: How are they able to get away with this when, say, any other entertainment entity, if they attempted to — Of course, we do know about #MeToo in Hollywood, there are horrible things that happen in the background of pro sports, but it seems to run so coarsely through the DNA of pro wrestling through Vince McMahon. Do you think they’re able to get away with things that other cultural institutions aren’t able to get away with behind the scenes?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Absolutely. You see a lot of cultural institutions these days, essentially, whether they know it or not, pulling from the playbook of Vince McMahon and wrestling.
Now, the thing is, there’s this concept within wrestling, kayfabe, K-A-Y-F-A-B-E, it used to just refer to the fiction that wrestling was a legitimate sport and that the characters you were seeing were how these people actually were. Well, that went away when Vince sought deregulation, and, in official testimony, said that wrestling was fake.
So in 1989, there’s this big public acknowledgement that wrestling is fake, but he managed to persist by really bending reality at a level that has allowed him to get away with a lot of things.
He, I don’t want to say invented, but certainly codified this concept that I gave the name neo-kayfabe, where you intentionally, very deliberately muddy the waters of fact and fiction. You make it so that, you’re not saying, hey, everything you’re seeing here tonight is real, you’re saying, hey, everything you see tonight is fake — But wouldn’t it be interesting if some of it was actually real? Why don’t you do the math? And then all of a sudden people can just make up whatever they want about reality.
And, more importantly, if the company gets into trouble, everything’s so confusing as to what’s real, what’s fake, what kinds of lascivious acts Vince McMahon may have done on television versus ones he did behind the scenes, allegedly. All of these things get so confusing that people tend to just stop investigating. Or they become such obsessive investigators that they sound nuts and nobody pays attention to them. You may notice some parallels to politics right here. And —
Dave Zirin: Everyone watching this interview is thinking about Donald Trump as you are saying what you are saying.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: And Donald Trump has been watching Vince McMahon’s product for decades, and was watching Vince McMahon’s father and grandfather’s product as far back as the 1950s. Trump is a huge wrestling fan and has participated in a lot of Vince’s wrestling, and I think learned a lot from him.
And one of the big lessons is if you say things that are so outrageous or outrageously false or outrageously true and you mix them in with each other to the point where no one knows what’s true or false, then you can get away with a lot. You can get away with a lot.
And wrestling, even before neo-kayfabe, had that kayfabe code of basically Omerta. It was like a mafia. You had a lot of guys in wrestling who just did not tell the world about what happened inside wrestling, and that can be very powerful for an ecosystem.
Dave Zirin: Is this why everything you just said, why you called your book Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America? And perhaps you could delve into that a little bit more of what that means, the unmaking of America?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Sure. I think there’s a degree to which we had a social fabric that was held together by certain… Let’s just call them falsehoods, or you could even call them lies. And in wrestling, you had the big lie, which was, everything you’re seeing tonight in this show is fake. In American politics, you had the lie, this is a perfectly representative democracy. Now, it never was actually a perfectly representative democracy, but for a long time you had a lot of people at least buying into the ideal that it should be one.
And what you’ve seen recently — And I think Vince McMahon did this very cannily in wrestling, but you see this more broadly now — You see the social fabric getting torn because you have a broad understanding that these things are fake.
Now, was it good to be held together by a lie? I’m not sure it was, but you can demonstrate that the lie was something that unified people, and this mix of fact and fiction that is deliberately muddy and confusing, it just drives people against each other.
And I really think a big factor in the mess that this country is in right now is this neo-kayfabe approach to politics, business, culture, whatever. You can just throw a bunch of nonsense along with a bunch of totally true things at people, and they’ll spend so much time trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t that they’re paying attention to you, and then you win even if you didn’t actually do anything for society. So I hope that wasn’t too long an answer, but that’s —
Dave Zirin: No, no. It’s a good answer.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: …The general thing I’m looking at.
Dave Zirin: Yeah, yeah. And that’s such a good answer, I’ve got a follow up to it.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Please.
Dave Zirin: And instead of moving to the repercussions for Vince McMahon, which we have to talk about, but —
Abraham Josephine Riesman: We will talk about that, yes.
Dave Zirin: But what you’re saying is so important, though, that this question of belief. Do you think that because so much of what had unified this country was this idea of a truth that people also suspected was a lie, or a lie which contained elements of truth, do you think that’s one of the points of attraction of pro wrestling to, not just the American public, but internationally? This idea that, okay, at least this is, on the level, fake?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Yes. I think there is a degree to which, if you think that you can see through the veil of wrestling — Which is harder than you’d think it would be — If you can see fully through the veil, or at least think you can, it can be very gratifying to watch something that is as often nihilistic as wrestling because you feel like, well, at least it’s honest in its dishonesty.
But the trouble with that is maybe there was a time when that was true, but in the era of neo-kayfabe, you have a lot of things that are presented by the wrestling press or by WWE’s documentary team or whatever as being behind-the-scenes truths that supersede the in-ring truths, and those behind-the-scenes truths are very often just as fictional, just as concocted by the people Vince McMahon has hired.
And you can really get into problems when you let that appeal of going, ooh, I’m learning the truth lead you to being deceived, which is easier than people like to think it might be.
Dave Zirin: So what repercussions are we going to see in terms of the life and professional future of the, of course, already elderly Vince McMahon — Although he certainly doesn’t seem to want to take a step back from the spotlight at all. But is this, at long last, the end of The Boss, either as a character or as a person behind the scenes?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: I think as a character on WWE, the odds are very much against us ever seeing Mr. McMahon again. In fact, the big question, I think, is where will we see Mr. McMahon from the past?
Because here’s the thing, what people may not know is WWE, although it was a family-owned then publicly traded company that was controlled by the McMahons for decades, last year, Vince maneuvered it to a sale to Endeavor Holdings, Ari Emanuel’s company, and WWE was merged with UFC to form a company called TKO.
And the trouble is Vince, in pursuing being a respectable businessman like that, ended up giving himself a boss. And I think the situation TKO and WWE find themselves in right now is they can’t really afford to embrace Vince McMahon on any level because these allegations are not just about Vince, they’re about complicity from the entirety of the company, or at least many people up top at the company, allegedly.
And I really think when you look at the response that WWE had to the allegations and then resignation, it was very limp and confusing. You had Triple H, Paul Levesque, Vince McMahon’s son-in-law and the chief creative officer for WWE, a C-suite executive, coming out after last weekend’s Royal Rumble wrestling event and reading a prepared statement that had nothing to do with Vince and was just about the rumble. Then got a question or two about Vince, and his response, most infamously, a reporter, Brandon Thurston, asked him, have you read the lawsuit? And Triple H just said, I have not.
And I don’t think, at this point, that the corporate bean counters who own this wrestling product are going to have the same kind of loyalty to Vince McMahon or the wrestling business that the old hand-picked Vince McMahon crew from when it was an independent company would’ve had.
So I think, to answer your question, I don’t know what Vince McMahon’s future looks like exactly, but it’s going to be wrapped up in these allegations for a while.
Barring Trump winning again and just squashing the federal investigation into Vince, there is this federal probe going on that the authority, there was just a report this morning from The Wall Street Journal that this probe is incorporating these sex trafficking allegations, and that case will eventually come to something, presumably. Again, anything can happen, but if it comes to fruition, that’ll be a whole new low for Vince. That’ll be a really difficult situation. I think his legacy is really challenged, but there’s a lot still to be seen as to how this plays out.
Dave Zirin: Now I saw that Triple H, aka Paul Levesque, press conference, it totally looked like a hostage video. He looked miserable, and frankly he looked old, which I’ve never said about Triple H before.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: It’s been a rough year for Paul Levesque, whatever you think about his response, I cannot imagine the turbulence of going through this year at WWE.
Dave Zirin: Yeah. But does his performance at that, I guess you just answered it, but I wanted to ask you if his performance reflected anything about what’s going on? Maybe you could speak about that last year for him.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Yes, I think, if anything, if nothing else, I should say, it reflected the confusion in wrestling right now as to what the party line is. Because the party line for 40 years, if you work for Vince or if you hope to work for Vince someday or you fear you might have to, the party line has always been don’t rat out Vince. Don’t say anything bad about Vince. Don’t say anything Vince wouldn’t want you to say.
And now we’re in this completely unprecedented situation where Vince is still alive but not somebody that is protected in the way that he was, and he’s no longer anybody’s boss there.
So what I think Paul Levesque’s statement reflected was this total unwillingness to be the first person to stick your neck out, which is just how wrestling works. It’s a very vicious ecosystem, and nobody wants to be the one who takes the risk of ticking off Vince McMahon.
That said, now you’re like, well, maybe I should be speaking out. If you’re an executive, you’re thinking, I should speak out because that would be me being loyal to TKO and to Ari Emanuel. But Ari Emanuel and TKO have not made a party line publicly clear. If something has gone on internally, no one’s heard about it. So I think there’s just a lot of confusion, and Triple H’s response really reflected the fact that nobody knows what to say.
Dave Zirin: Look, I am not a pessimist by nature, but I actually can see a world where Trump wins re-election, squashes the federal probe, and Vince actually comes out to the ring triumphant as the guy who won. And a section of the fan base celebrates the fact that Vince is able to get away with it and beat back the government and these —
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Beat Biden’s justice department. Yeah, there is a non-zero chance that if Trump wins, this investigation gets crushed. But if Trump wins, there’s a whole other set of problems that are going to create a multi-ball situation in the pinball machines. So I can’t really predict.
Dave Zirin: Yeah, it’s just more, I’m speaking of the nature of the wrestling fan, which of course is heterogeneous. I can see —
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Oh, absolutely. But there are a lot of people in wrestling fandom who are very MAGA, who don’t trust Biden’s justice department, and there’s plenty of people out there you can find in the internet wrestling community right now howling that this is a witch hunt, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, you have a section of wrestling fandom that’s pretty much die-hard pro-Vince and does not really tolerate much evidence in the other direction. My Amazon and Goodreads reviews will be a perfect testament to this.
Dave Zirin: Can’t wait for that.
You’ve been so generous with your time, but I’m not quite ready to let you go. Can I ask you just another question?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Please, hit me.
Dave Zirin: If that’s okay.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: I’m ready.
Dave Zirin: All right. So the Slim Jim situation, where Slim Jim, the longtime sponsor of WWE, pulls its sponsorship after the allegations drop, and then within, what, 24 hours brings it right back in. There was the Netflix deal that was announced just days before these allegations dropped, multi-million dollar deal for Netflix to host a ton of WWE —
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Multi-billion, $5 billion. Yeah.
Dave Zirin: That’s right, billion. Billion, that’s right. Here’s the question. Is any of that threatened right now or are the trains just going to keep running on time, Monday Night Raw and the rest of it?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: If Vince were still involved with the company right now, I would say that some of those partnerships might be in danger. But he resigned, and the company has, although they don’t really have much of a narrative about what’s going on, they have cut ties with him, at least publicly.
So I think as far as corporate damage control goes, I think the brand has not endured that much damage yet.
Now I say yet because it’s unclear who’s going to get implicated as these lawsuits and the federal probe continue. Already in the lawsuit you had unnamed people who are identified by their titles: WWE Corporate Officer No.2, WWE Superstar No.1. And if these people get fully outed, and if more people are found, it’s unclear exactly what the response will be.
But I would say that my prediction is WWE will probably be fine. The brand has been through horrible scandal in the past, and it’s generally come out just fine. It is not as popular as it was at the turn of the millennium, but it’s a very solid, solid media empire. So I don’t think WWE is that much threatened, but Vince McMahon is no longer with WWE, and he definitely faces some real threats.
Dave Zirin: Wow. Last question. People like myself who love the art of wrestling can’t stand Vince McMahon, and to a large degree can’t stand WWE. Is there still a place for us in this sport?
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Well, obviously there’s AEW, which is the rival, the much smaller rival run by Tony Khan. But I would tell people to go out to your, look, wherever you are in the United States, I guarantee you there is an independent wrestling promotion somewhere near you comprised of day players who all have real jobs, or at least are seeking real jobs in this economy, and are not egomaniacal megastars. There are people who are really in it for the love of it because there ain’t no money in it.
And if you are interested in wrestling, and I love the art form so deeply, I always tell people, go see your local independent wrestling promotion. Don’t necessarily spend the money on going to a big corporate thing. You can have the real experience in a VFW hall with a bunch of sweaty accountants wrestling each other. It’s really kind of a magical experience.
Dave Zirin: Amen to that. Abraham Josephine Reisman, you’re a terrific interviewee. The subject is so important. The book is Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and The Unmaking of America. Thank you so much for joining us here on Edge of Sports.
Abraham Josephine Riesman: Thank you for having me.
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