Ari Emanuel is finally telling his side of one of the biggest stories in wrestling history. In his new memoir, Roll the Calls, the TKO CEO opens up about the moments Vince McMahon’s scandals exploded, the conversations they had behind the scenes, and the phone call that ultimately ended McMahon’s role in the company.
Emanuel writes that he was at Wimbledon when The Wall Street Journal published its first report in July 2022 about McMahon’s secret nondisclosure agreements with multiple women. Even though he tried to ignore his phone during the match, he says he could feel it constantly buzzing with people asking what the story meant for WWE, Endeavor and everyone involved. When the match ended, McMahon called him personally.
“I was at Wimbledon when The Wall Street Journal dropped its first bombshell report… I stared at my phone, then did something I never do: slipped it into my pocket.”
“The rest of the match I didn’t look at the thing once. But I felt it in there like some tiny animal, wiggling, buzzing, chirping. People asking if I’d seen the story. Asking what it meant for the company. For me. Truth was—I didn’t know. And now, months later, I still don’t.”
“As I walked out of Wimbledon, Vince called and assured me the charges were false. But he also said he was going to step down, for the good of the company. His daughter… would take over.”
That decision didn’t last long. Emanuel recalls McMahon returning to WWE months later, describing the entire situation as chaotic. He says that’s when he started pushing what he believed was the only realistic solution—selling WWE and combining it with UFC under Endeavor.
“A short time after that, however, Vince changed his mind and took back the company. What a mess. Such a mess, in fact, that I can see only one solution, and now I’m steadily pitching that solution to Vince. Vince, old buddy: Sell us your company. The idea is to merge Vince’s wrestling empire with UFC, creating one giant fighting mega-organism. Vince can stay on as a sort of chairman emeritus. We talk about running his company, but it’s more about saving the company. Because the whole enterprise is teetering. Vince, who’s having all manner of health problems, seems not to fully understand.”
Emanuel says the negotiations that followed lasted for months and were “friendly, but also maddeningly slow” before the merger agreement was finally completed. Then everything changed again in January 2024 when The Wall Street Journal published Janel Grant’s allegations against McMahon.
According to Emanuel, those allegations immediately put the company in an entirely different situation. He recalls getting a call from Endeavor President Mark Shapiro within moments of the story breaking, with both men agreeing there was only one path forward.
“And then… f***. More revelations. The worst yet. These revelations are on a different level, orders of magnitude more troubling than the previous ones. Moments after they break, Shapiro calls. ‘Ari—you reading this s***?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘We gotta get him out.’ ‘Yeah. I know.’ ‘All the way out the door, Ari. Right the f*** now. No emeritus position, no involvement in the company whatsoever.’ ‘I know.'”
Emanuel admits he knew exactly what had to happen but wasn’t comfortable delivering the message himself. Instead, he turned to Shapiro to tell McMahon that his time with TKO was over.
“I know what needs to be done, I have clarity, but I’m feeling uncomfortable. So I deploy my go-to phrase—’Tell him, Mark.’ Shapiro sighs. ‘Vince, we’ve crossed several red lines and we’re in new territory here.'” We both wait, listening to the white noise. Finally Vince says—’Okay. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Today.'”
Emanuel’s memoir offers one of the clearest firsthand looks yet at the conversations taking place behind closed doors as WWE’s corporate future changed forever. While much of the merger has already been pieced together through lawsuits and public records, his account adds the personal side of how those decisions were made—and how quickly everything changed once the second Wall Street Journal story was published.
What surprised you most about Ari Emanuel’s account of those conversations with Vince McMahon? Let us know in the comments below.
