I had previously written about how I was a bit concerned about the fact that WWE and UFC had joined under the same flag of TKO. With this merger Vince McMahon of WWE was placed in a chairman role and my main concern was that he was going to implement more of the type of faked hype that is so common in WWE events. I already think that UFC fighters with the most microphone skills are given fights that they don't necessarily deserve and a person's social-media presence was becoming more of a part of whether or not they got good payouts and good fights and that their actual fighting capabilities was taking a back seat to this sort of publicity. McMahon is extremely good at creating this sort of hype and this is evident in the fact that he is able to keep butts in the seats and sell out massive arenas for what everyone knows is a scripted and fake sport.
They kept it really quiet when this happened, but Vince will no longer be a part of the management of TKO and will have nothing, at least in any official sense, to do with the management of UFC.
There were a lot of people that were not pleased about McMahon holding a top executive position with TKO but we need to step back and look at the facts of this and every other sport in that money drives the operation and there is no denying that Vince excels at doing that. He has faced stiff competition in the wrestling side of things his entire life including having a personal beef with Ted Turner of TBS who at the time seemed to be willing to throw billions at then WCW for no other reason than to squash McMahon. Turner was losing money at an incredibly pace but kept it going for years at a loss just to attempt to "win" vs. Vince. After a couple of billion in wasted money Ted finally decided to exit the game. The fact that Vince was able to not only survive this assault, but thrive and emerge victorious after it, is a testament to how good at business the man actually is.
Unfortunately it also seems as though Vince developed a bit of a "god complex" over those years and while I think it is just fine for someone to have a big ego after decades of staring destruction in the face against overwhelming odds and emerging victorious regardless, he made a few really bad mistakes with the ladies along the way.
When Janel Grant brought about her accusations of some pretty horrible things that were done to her by Vince, I was one of the people that was hesitant to believe her. I realize now that much of my opinion was developed by a biased media who was attempting to make her look like a gold digger who was just looking for a multi-million dollar payout as "hush money." However, once she made her story public many other women popped out of the woodwork to state that similar things were done to them by Vince.
While none of these things have actually been brought to trial and likely never will because in a way, I think these women actually ARE looking for money and will get it, it ultimately lies on them to press the charges. So I'm not saying that Vince is innocent but Janel definitely isn't either. She and many other women who are ex-employees of WWE and Vince have admitted in accepting rather massive payouts to keep quiet. A total of $14.6 million in hush money has been revealed thus far and I think it is safe to assume that there is more out there that we don't know about.
I don't think Vince is innocent, but I also don't think that these women were held against their will. Perhaps they regret having participated in the things that have happened, but at the time the evidence suggests that for the most part, they were willing and compensated members of a harem of sorts that were at Vince's disposal. I'm not saying that what Vince did was OK, but the charges of sex trafficking are absurd. No one was forced to do this so much as they were coerced by the pursuit of money. Vince has continuously stated that while his behavior can be viewed as extraordinarily depraved, that none of what occurred with him and the women in question was non-consensual.
Regardless of what the truth is here TKO didn't have to demand that Vince step down, which they almost certainly would have done, but Vince realized that his name shouldn't be associated with the company in order to avoid the bad effects that such a partnership would most likely result in.
Not only has Vince been cut from TKO and therefore UFC, but he has also cut ties with WWE in any sort of official capacity. There was no one calling for him to get away from WWE but given the circumstances, it was the best move they could make.
Sex allegations aside, I am happy to see that McMahon will not have anything to do with the running of UFC because we have enough fake drama in there already - we don't need more promos and long-winded microphone sessions following wins in the octagon. We already have far more than I think is needed.