On the night of Fri., Jan. 26, Vince McMahon resigned from all his roles at WWE and its parent company TKO Group.
The move came about 36 hours after Janel Grant’s lawsuit against McMahon and the pro wrestling company he led for decades made headlines with disturbing details about the abuse & exploitation the former WWE employee alleges she suffered while in a relationship with McMahon. It appeared to specifically be prompted by a major sponsor’s decision to pull out of WWE’s Royal Rumble event due to those allegations (Slim Jim would re-associate themselves with the Jan. 27 show the morning after McMahon’s resignation).
Word of McMahon’s resignation came via a leaked internal message from WWE President Nick Khan to company employees, and a statement to the press from McMahon. This morning (Jan. 29) TKO made it official, informing the United States Securities and Exchange Commission of McMahon’s exit in a Form 8-K filing:
Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
On January 26, 2024, Vincent K. McMahon notified the board of directors (the “Board”) of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (“TKO”) of his resignation from his positions as Executive Chair and a member of the Board, and any other positions, employment or otherwise, he has at TKO and its subsidiaries, in each case, with immediate effect as of January 26, 2024.
McMahon resigned from WWE once before, during an investigation into the reporting of payments he made to ensure the silence of Grant and other women. That time, he was able to use his control of the vast majority of WWE’s voting shares to engineer a return against the Board of Director’s wishes. With the sale to Endeavor and creation of TKO, he no longer has that power — making it extremely likely there is no path back to the company for McMahon this time.
