Vince McMahon may actually be done this time [Trigger warning: Sexual Assault]

[chokeout]

It's sad to say that he almost certainly won't face legal consequences, because its Vince and he's been dodging stuff like this for years. The best we can hope for is he's battered financially, any amount of power he was given in the merger is taken away (because that's the two things he cares about) and  that this is enough to make sure his name has an asterisk next to it, like Bill Cosby, and he's not discussed again without being the punchline of a joke.  

[Loki]

Somewhat a hostage to fortune here, but of all the major stars you might expect to hear terrible stories about, Hogan's one that never comes up.  Obviously his racist language has been outed, but besides having been married a few times, the swinging and having a much younger girlfriend I can't recall any Hogan sex scandal stories ever having come up in the gossip sheets or on that old scandals list.  

Having said that, perhaps there are a lot of Hogan related payoffs in the WWE books from the 80s, who knows?

1 hour ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

the only person in prison for all the Epstein shit is a woman

Absolutely spot on.  They recovered video tapes from Epstein's island.  It's been said before that he used to clandestinely videotape his guests and their activities.  And yet all the evidence they collected seems to have fallen into a federal memory hole.  Still, let's throw one of his first victims in jail.

[BomberPat]

2 minutes ago, Loki said:

Somewhat a hostage to fortune here, but of all the major stars you might expect to hear terrible stories about, Hogan's one that never comes up.  Obviously his racist language has been outed, but besides having been married a few times, the swinging and having a much younger girlfriend I can't recall any Hogan sex scandal stories ever having come up in the gossip sheets or on that old scandals list.  

Having said that, perhaps there are a lot of Hogan related payoffs in the WWE books from the 80s, who knows?

There was a story going around a while back about a celebrity family engaging in the sort of activity people are talking about Vince trying to write on TV with Stephanie, and some gossip sites very heavily implied it was the Bolleas.

[air_raid]

Another angle to all this ; I really hope that (still gross as it would be) that the replies from the Beast Incarnate are just the "humouring the boss/playing along" type that occasionally people have to do when their boss is a complete villain, and that he didn't actually entertain the thought of joining in with the abuse. I hoped he was better than that. I always had him pictured as the simple  "show up, do match, get paid, go back to the farm/wife/kids" type.

[RedRooster]

37 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

I don't know how I feel about people using things Vince has done on TV as "evidence" that he's a monster - there's more than enough stories about him behind-the-scenes without reaching for that, and while some of what he's done on camera obviously leans into him being a horrific person, I'm both uncomfortable with something that happens in-character being held up as proof of what a performer is really like (not just specifically in Vince's case, I hasten to add), and because reducing this to things the TV character of Vince McMahon has done distracts from the fact that he was able to do this because he had an unprecedented amount of power and control that made him untouchable and well-protected within a corporate structure,  which is so much bigger than him being a wrestling wrong'un. 

I disagree with this quite strongly. If he wasn’t booking the shows, you might have a point - but he was. And he was booking himself to kiss, fondle, grope and humiliate much younger women. If it was a one-off, you could maybe dismiss it - but this was regular. Very few of these performers, if any, would have been in a position to say no. When you consider that there are actual text messages proving that he found certain scenarios sexually gratifying, it becomes even more disturbing. This would be true even if this entire legal situation was indisputably proved to be consensual. The question remains as to whether or not he was booking himself in angles to get sexual kicks.

Then you have angles where the Vince McMahon character is accused of doing things that he is also alleged to have done in real life - which is what I imagine you’re actually referring to in your post. This is still relevant, because, once again, many of these outline situations he seems to find - based on his own text messages - gratifying.

None of this is enough to land him in court, but it’s more than enough to allow anyone to suggest that all of the above is unacceptable, even if you come to the conclusion that, on his side, the behaviour was not for gratification. 

As far as ‘backstage stories’ go, they are often hard to evidence; particularly in a world where we know performers are prone to exaggeration. It makes these stories very easy to dismiss. However, what we have on screen is a catalogue of indisputable evidence; regardless of how you want to interpret it. At best, it’s evidence that women were unintentionally placed in potentially uncomfortable angles that they couldn’t refuse. At worst, it’s potentially much more sinister. 

Edited January 26 by RedRooster

[DavidB6937]

You have to think that booking all the creepy stuff on TV was just an extension of Vince getting himself off at every opportunity. I can only imagine the thrill he probably got from being hidden in plain sight, everyone thinking it was just storylines or a character, but actually he was just giving himself chance after chance to enjoy himself in the most horrible way possible.

Obviously TV stuff doesn't act as proof but when you put it all together, it's quite the horrible picture isn't it. If the allegations are all true, not only did he do all that stuff but then took the opportunities to basically go out there and rub it in everyone's faces.

[RedRooster]

2 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

Obviously TV stuff doesn't act as proof but when you put it all together, it's quite the horrible picture isn't it. If the allegations are all true, not only did he do all that stuff but then took the opportunities to basically go out there and rub it in everyone's faces.

It’s circumstantial evidence - but very compelling circumstantial evidence. In the case of the clip that’s gone viral, he’s having his own daughter outline a situation disturbingly close to sexual fantasies that he shares in text messages. That’s in addition to frequently pitching incest angles, a clip in which he looks down her top, and frequent angles in which she is presented in very sexual situations. It’s either evidence of depravity or extreme misogyny, where even his own family members were seen as objects. Perhaps it’s both. Whatever the case, maybe it’s not such a bad thing if much of the ‘classic’ content disappears when the Network goes away. 

[BomberPat]

I disagree with the idea that what happened on-screen is "indisputable evidence", because it's the easiest thing for anyone in his defence to handwave away as just being the actions of an on-screen character - and a good legal team could easily extrapolate from that to say that his accusers are only extrapolating from the on-screen persona, not the real man. 

I agree that there are questions to be asked about to what extent he was booking himself for self-gratification, and that could be illuminating - I think something being overlooked in this line of thought is that Vince McMahon only really started to be booked as a sexualised character after he bought out WCW, which I think in part could be argued as him moving more in that direction once he considered himself to be completely untouchable and unassailable - but for the most part they are only questions, not evidence, at least until if and when any performers or writers come forward and more explicitly connect those angles and storylines to Vince's real-life actions; some genuine evidence that he was pressuring women into these on-screen situations, or writers that can confirm that he was actively booking this stuff for those purposes.

It's all skeezy and horrible, and I'm not arguing that. I just think focusing it on it as evidence, rather than digging further into the serious allegations that have been made about Vince's actions off-camera, and the suggestions of collusion, cover-ups and financial wrongdoing alongside all of this, should be a far bigger focus of any investigation (criminal or journalistic) that might come out of this.

 

It's on a completely different scale, but it's like when Joey Ryan was called out, David Bixenspan was hyper-focused on his gimmick. Obviously his gimmick was sexualised, and there's an element of "hiding in plain sight" with that, but the majority of what allowed Joey Ryan to abuse people and get away with it was because he was a popular and influential star who he could abuse his position to make promises of success or threats of ruination to ensure people kept quiet about his actions. Focusing on the character rather than the man, even when aspects of the character can be very illuminating, runs the risk of missing out on the core of what's happening and how it's been allowed to happen, in my opinion.

[Mojo]

WWE_complaint.pdf (wsj.net)

 

the whole 67 pages of the complaint is online.

 

sordid reading indeed 

[Version1.0]

Edited January 26 by Version1.0

[DavidB6937]

17 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

It's on a completely different scale, but it's like when Joey Ryan was called out, David Bixenspan was hyper-focused on his gimmick. Obviously his gimmick was sexualised, and there's an element of "hiding in plain sight" with that, but the majority of what allowed Joey Ryan to abuse people and get away with it was because he was a popular and influential star who he could abuse his position to make promises of success or threats of ruination to ensure people kept quiet about his actions. Focusing on the character rather than the man, even when aspects of the character can be very illuminating, runs the risk of missing out on the core of what's happening and how it's been allowed to happen, in my opinion.

It's definitely a fine line. I remember similar happening with Kevin Spacey vs how he was in House of Cards, for example. Almost comparable in a way because of that weird video he then released, almost a Vince-esque defiance.

[SaitoRyo]

15 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

I think something being overlooked in this line of thought is that Vince McMahon only really started to be booked as a sexualised character after he bought out WCW, which I think in part could be argued as him moving more in that direction once he considered himself to be completely untouchable and unassailable

I swear I am not trying to be pedantic, but the first proper 'Vince is the world's best shagger' storyline was with him and Trish Stratus at the end of 2000/beginning of 2001 (ending at WrestleMania X-Seven). 

But you're right in that after he bought WCW it was basically a pre-requisite for any new 'diva' to make out with him on camera. 

[Chris B]

One thing that I'm finding weird and unpleasant in the middle of all of this. Brock Lesnar's wife sued Vince for sexual harassment 20 years ago. And now, he's joining in with Vince to harass women.

[air_raid]

2 minutes ago, Chris B said:

One thing that I'm finding weird and unpleasant in the middle of all of this. Brock Lesnar's wife sued Vince for sexual harassment 20 years ago. And now, he's joining in with Vince to harass women.

"Harrass women"....

13 minutes ago, air_raid said:

is stretching what we know to this point. He sent some texts.

.... to Vince.

Edited January 26 by air_raid

[RedRooster]

21 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I disagree with the idea that what happened on-screen is "indisputable evidence", because it's the easiest thing for anyone in his defence to handwave away as just being the actions of an on-screen character - and a good legal team could easily extrapolate from that to say that his accusers are only extrapolating from the on-screen persona, not the real man. 

You misunderstand me - I’m not saying it’s indisputable evidence in the context of this case, but it’s clear evidence of a certain culture; a culture in which women were asked to do things they simply couldn’t refuse due to their position on the card. If most of them refused to participate in an angle like that, it’s pretty likely their career could have ground to a halt, and they would be branded as ‘difficult’. 

You are right that a defence team could use it for that reason - something I considered mentioning in my post - but I don’t think they would actively look to point to that. They wouldn’t want to make that defence unless they really had to. There are a lot of examples of predators behaving in a predatory way on TV, so I would be surprised if a defence team proactively pointed to any of this.

Regardless - my point was (perhaps not quite explained clearly enough, to be fair), that there is more than enough evidence outside of the case to cause us to pause and take stock and consider who this man is, and the kind of culture he created. There are clear examples of WWE broadcasting McMahon and other characters living out sexual fantasies we now know he has. Even if he just thought it was entertaining television and the intention was not to gratify himself, it’s still clear evidence of something seriously wrong going on; that a man became so powerful and so unchallenged by others that he was able to present his own sexual fantasies on television - EVEN if you decide it was purely ‘for entertainment purposes’.