Date: 06/15	11:00 PM
Views: 811

Wed. #2 is HERE. To help out the site subscribe to Mistah MegaManFan or support us on Patreon. With the cheap plugs out of the way here's Thursday's latest wrestling news.

The Wall Street Journal reports that WWE's Board of Directors is investigating chairman and CEO Vince McMahon for an alleged three million dollar hush payment made in January 2022 to an ex-employee McMahon had an affair with. The payment was made in return for signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that prevents her from disparaging McMahon or WWE. She was apparently hired as a paralegal back in 2019 at $100,000 per year, with her salary being doubled once she became involved with McMahon. The Board's investigation of the payment dates back to April of this year and is being led by Man Jit Singh, a former executive of Sony Home Entertainment. McMahon reportedly paid her out of his own account rather than through corporate, and the WSJ report alleges he "gave her" to John Laurinaitis at one point, whatever that would mean. Neither Laurinaitis nor McMahon would go on record for the Journal's story. Lawyer Jerry McDevitt responded though and claimed the woman "wasn't paid any monies upon her departure."

Internally WWE sent the following message to employees: "The Wall Street Journal has published a report about WWE with allegations that we and our Board of Directors take seriously. We are cooperating fully with the independent investigation initiated by our Board of Directors." If the Board tried to dismiss him Vince owns 80% of the voting shares and could easily veto any action on their part.

Despite his veto power employees who spoke anonymously off the record described this investigation as "the biggest threat to Vince McMahon since the steroid trial" of 1994. (FF)

There are no plans for Vince to miss the SmackDown taping this Friday, regardless of the ongoing investigation. (PWI)

Speaking of Vince McMahon, Oliver Luck's lawsuit against Vince and Alpha entertainment is headed to trial after settlement talks only lasted nine minutes. Luck seeks $23.8 million in compensation from his XFL contract for money he was guaranteed as the comissioner before the league ceased operatios and Luck was terminated. WWE countersued for $572,000 claiming Luck was in breach of his contract and duties when they terminated him. The trial's starting date is July 11th. (WO)

Ironically despite all of this drama WWE's stock price ROSE yesterday and closed at $67.18 a share, likely because a Morgan Stanley analyst set a new target price of $75.

In a video shared to Reddit, Jeff Hardy is seen drinking whiskey the night before his DUI arrest and calling it "my best friend and my worst enemy." On a related note AEW has reportedly changed their plans for the tag team division as a result of Hardy's suspension. (FF)

In this interview Daniel Garcia talks about his WWE tryout: "They asked me to stay an extra day to have a squash match on NXT against Tyler Rust. The match went really well. I remember I went to the back and Shawn Michaels loved it, Road Dogg loved it, and A-Train loved it. Triple H shook my hand and said 'Welcome to the team.' I think he thought I was signed, but I wasn't at the time. But in my mind, I was like 'Oh, I guess I'm going to NXT. Mom, I'm moving to Orlando!' I talked to Canyon Cemen right before I left. He said 'Hey. Let me know if any other place has interest because we'll sign you sooner.' And in my mind, I'm like 'That's disrespectful to me. If you want to sign me, just sign me.' Then I remember I was like 'Okay, he wants to play that? I'll play it back to him.' At the time I had interest from Ring of Honor, and I knew AEW wanted to bring me back in for extra work. But I was like 'I'm going to make this seem bigger than it actually is.' So I said to him 'Well with that being said, I'll talk to you very soon.' And I think he kind of got hot at me for that. I think it shook him up a bit. They emailed me a couple of weeks later, kind of saying 'We're going to stay in contact, blah blah blah.' That kind of made me mad. So I went on a crazy indie run and I signed with AEW."

WWE related videos are available below.

In addition new AEW related videos are below.

A collected tradeback of The New Day: Power of Positivity's graphic novels is coming out August 16th.

Via social media Dragon Lee indicated he can't work Forbidden Door either due to the CMLL relationship with NJPW.

Here Eric Bischoff talks about Dennis Rodman: "I've had a fairly successful experience working with professional athletes and bringing them into action in the ring. He's one of my favorite people. He's a great human being. If you don't know Dennis, trust me, you really don't know Dennis and if you do know Dennis, you know what I'm talking about. He's a good guy. Smart."

Thunder Rosa will be providing color commentary for Combate Global events next month.

This week's NXT 2.0 did 612,000 viewers, down from 657,000 last week. The 18-49 demo also fell from 0.14 to 0.12. (SBD)

Mercedes Martinez says being ROH Women's Title champion feels like coming full circle: "For me to still be wrestling and for Ring of Honor to have this division and actually have a title to say, 'Hey, you guys now take the spotlight,' and for me to hold this title is kind of like full circle. It's a blessing and I just want to be able to have this title and really do it justice as best as I can with the opportunities that I get under the AEW banner. It's something really special, I hold it dear to my heart. With all the championships that I've held, this one probably means the most right now to me."

To make a long story short Dax Harwood since FTR being managed by Bret Hart was the best night of his life.

Chris Brookes says he turned down an offer to join NXT UK in 2017.

Sammy Guevara interfered to help Chris Jericho win the hair vs. hair match with Ortiz on Dynamite. (AEW)

Miro defeated Ethan Page to advance to the All-Atlantic four way. (AEW)

The Young Bucks beat Jurassic Express for the tag titles on Dynamite. (AEW)

Here's the updated Forbidden Door card. (AEW)

* Interim AEW World Championship Match: Jon Moxley vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
* AEW All-Atlantic Championship Match: PAC vs. Malakai Black OR Penta Oscuro vs. Miro vs. Clark Connors OR Tomohiro Ishii
* AEW Women's World Championship Match: Thunder Rosa vs. Toni Storm
* IWGP United States Championship Match: Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy
* Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, & Minoru Suzuki vs. Wheeler Yuta, Shota Umino, & Eddie Kingston

Here's the card for Rampage tomorrow night. (AEW)

* TBS Championship Match: Jade Cargill vs. Willow Nightingale
* Darby Allin vs. Bobby Fish
* Dante Martin vs. Jon Moxley
* Gunn Club vs. Leon Ruff & Bear Country
* Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland speak

And here's an early card for next week's Dynamite. (AEW)

* All-Atlantic Championship Qualifying Match: Penta Oscuro vs. Malakai Black
* Kyle Fletcher, Mark Davis & Will Ospreay vs. Orange Cassidy & Roppongi Vice

This is unconfirmed so take this last news item with several grains of salt until we know more -- Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc says that Sasha Banks has been released by WWE, but Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful says he's unable to confirm it. Either way it's trending on social media as you read this.