It's been a week now since the horrific allegations were made against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis and the WWE. The Wall Street Journal published a story about it on January 25th. You can read the article here. As if the article wasn't disturbing enough, the actual 67-page lawsuit is much, much worse. You can read the full lawsuit here.
I've been a fan of the WWE since my brother showed me the Boot Camp match from Madison Square Garden between the Iron Sheik and Sgt. Slaughter in 1984. I was 11 years old, and Vince McMahon was the face of the WWE as their main announcer. His commentary with Jesse "The Body" Ventura & Bruno Sammartino every Saturday morning on "Superstars of Wrestling" on Channel 5 and once a month on WNBC Channel 4 with Jesse on "Saturday Night's Main Event". I'd seen NWA on WTBS the Superstation, but they recorded their shows in a TV studio in what looked like 40 people, and it seemed cheesy, and lame compared to the thousands in attendance on the WWE TV shows. As I got older, I'd come to appreciate the wrestling in NWA and the different style of the 2 companies, but the WWE shows were always my favorite to watch.
I have suffered with insomnia for as long as I can remember. and for the past 30 years, every night as I'm trying to fall asleep, classic WWE wrestling plays on my TV. Here's the evolution of that.
- Started with Self Recorded VHS tapes
- Progressed to rented VHS tapes from my local video store.
- Burned all my VHS tapes to DVD's
- Subscribed to WWE 24/7 Classics on Demand from my local cable company
- Subscribed to the WWE Network
- Currently Subscribe to Peacock
Thursday night, I randomly selected Wrestlemania 2. Man, that was a mistake. Normally the WWE PPV broadcast team was Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura, but Wrestlemania 2 was being held from 3 different locations (New York, Chicago and Los Angeles). Who was the lead announcer from the opening location at the Nassau Coliseum in NY? Vince McMahon. My initial reaction was ugh but that quickly turned to disgust and anger. I turned off the show and tried to watch an NWA Clash of Champions from 1988. It didn't help. I wanted nothing to do with Pro Wrestling that night.
My family had plans to watch the Royal Rumble at a friend's house this past Saturday and to be honest, I didn't want to go. Just didn't want to watch wrestling yet, especially WWE wrestling. But my 7-year-old absolutely loves wrestling after seeing me in a match for the first time back in October. He can name every WWE Superstar and reacts to everything he sees on TV like its 100% legitimate and "real". So, I didn't feel right telling him we weren't going especially since he had no idea about the allegations.
As the show was starting my buddy says to me "pretty f'd up about Vince huh". I said, "yeah but let's not talk about it now with the kids around" My wife said, "what about Vince?" I said we'd talk later. I spent most of the show messing around on my phone and not paying attention to the show at all. My son was super into it until CM Punk was last eliminated by Cody Rhoades and he was mad and said the Royal Rumble was "rigged" which I found pretty funny considering he was right but didn't know why he was right. lol.
When we got home my wife asked me what the deal with Vince was all about. We have a very good relationship when it comes to openness and communication, but I couldn't bring myself to talk to her about it. I told her I wasn't going to talk to her about it and said she could look it up online if she wanted. She said, "look where" I said, anywhere. I was so embarrassed and sick about the situation I couldn't even talk to her about it.
I think about what happened to the girl in the lawsuit and I get sick to my stomach. I know bosses have been sleeping with their secretaries and secretaries have been sleeping with their bosses since women entered the workforce but the situation with Vince is sick, cruel and downright evil. How can anyone be so warped and demented to do this to another person. Let alone a young girl who was already in a compromised mental state after losing both her parents, her family home and having no job.
I know these are just allegations at this point, but you don't have someone sign a $3,000,000.00 NDA for an affair unless there was some serious things you don't want made public. The scary part about this is the is another NDA out there for another woman for $7,500,000.00. I don't even want to know what the fuck happened there if it's worth $4,500,000.00 MORE than this lawsuit alleges.
Tonight, John Laurinaitis' lawyer claims John is also a victim in this situation just like the plaintiff. I'll let you make your own judgement on that claim, but my initial reaction is #@*@ you!
Aside from the Royal Rumble on Saturday, I haven't watched any pro wrestling at all, and I have no desire to. In fact, I want nothing to do with pro wrestling at all right now. Might be a bit of an overaction but I'm in a wrestling funk and not sure when I'll kick out of it. I'm sure this will pass but right now my Insomnia will need to be accompanied by reruns of "This Old House" on the Roku Channel.
Sorry for the depressing blog with no pictures or funny stories but hopefully next time will be better.
-Mikey-
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