Vince McMahon is paying a brutal price to make the WWE shareholder lawsuit go away. Bloomberg Law says McMahon and his insurers agreed to pay $42.5 million as part of the settlement over WWE’s merger with UFC, pushing the total payout in the case to a jaw-dropping $147.5 million.
That $42.5 million is on top of the $105 million WWE had already disclosed as its contribution to the settlement. The full amount came out in a court filing Friday after the lead plaintiffs accused TKO of only giving part of the story in an earlier securities filing.
According to the shareholders, those partial disclosures allowed an incomplete picture of the settlement to spread publicly. The number is especially wild because McMahon and several other WWE executives were staring down the possibility of huge financial damages if the case went to trial and went against them.
The lawsuit accused McMahon of manipulating WWE’s sale process so Endeavor would land the company and allow him to remain involved after the scandal that had already forced him out as an executive. Shareholders argued that WWE could have gotten a better deal from another buyer if McMahon’s own future had not been part of the equation.
Things were already getting ugly before the settlement. McMahon and other defendants had been sanctioned by the court over missing communications tied to the sale process, including messages sent through Signal, an app that can automatically delete conversations. Those sanctions could have made it much harder for McMahon and the other defendants to fight the allegations once the case actually went to trial.
There were also several other potential buyers for WWE at the time, including AEW owner Tony Khan, but Endeavor ultimately won the process and merged WWE with UFC under TKO Group Holdings.
Now the courtroom fight is basically being replaced by a massive check. McMahon and his insurers are putting up $42.5 million, WWE is contributing $105 million, and the full settlement comes to $147.5 million. The deal still needs court approval, but the money involved is no longer a mystery.
What do you think about Vince McMahon having to cough up $42.5 million to settle the WWE merger lawsuit? Let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments.
