Vince McMahon may no longer have a wrestling company, but it hasn’t stopped him from doing what he loves most, put on a bad show.
Give him a cane, he’s not quite Fred Astaire, though.
Add an ill-fitting golf shirt, a thinner trembling physique, McMahon can be viewed in a recently released smartphone video weakly maneuvering the steps into a building. An unknown woman holding the door, the video is short, but it’s enough to portray McMahon as a beat up and harmless grandpa and not the Genetic Jackhammer, one of the countless nicknames he gave himself when he was running WWE.
It would be more convincing if this act hadn’t occurred before.
In 1993, a much younger McMahon was in federal court for steroids. This period is easy to identify in video and photos, not because of courthouse or judges in the background, but because McMahon was wearing a neck brace to court.
The brace was similar to Tony Khan’s, who did it as an old-fashioned sell after he was attacked by The Elite. He spent the next several days all over ESPN and NFL Network explaining the angle while he was in the Jacksonville Jaguars draft room.
It’s even less convincing after Harvey Weinstein’s recent schtick. After having his New York sex assault convictions overturned last week (he’s still convicted in California), was recorded on video trying to slowly use a walker in a corridor in an ill-fitting suit. Sweating, shaking, his hair a mess, Weinstein looked remarkably similar to McMahon.
It doesn’t help when the Grant investigation was announced, McMahon announced he was leaving to have spinal surgery done. What a coincidence.
Still sports entertaining, after all these years, McMahon’s show with the cane – like his performance with the neck brace years ago – is standard Vince fare. He no longer has a wrestling company, but he has the best law firm and the best PR firm money can buy and the world’s largest stage ahead – the US justice system. His new co-stars are going to weave his story any way that benefits him, the truth be damned, because that’s what lawyers and crisis management PR firms do, especially if that client is a billionaire and he’s paying you millions.
Meet your new cast – Jessica Taub Rosenberg, his lead attorney and co-chair of the firm that recently handed WWE a loss in civil court to MLW. She has attacked McMahon accuser Janel Grant on a regular basis in motions she’s filed or in interviews and statements.
First came a “love letter” to the New York Post, one in which Grant wrote in the opening paragraph it took “24 drafts” and has around five to six quotations on its first page lifted from Google searches.
As a passionate declaration of love, it was more of a fifth grader working to get a late assignment done before lunch ends.
Rosenberg said the letter was proof that McMahon did nothing to Grant. She’s angry at him for ending their affair and she’s still madly in love with him. That this is coming from an attorney is mind blowing, but that’s the case they’re making. Love letters were also given to Epstein and Weinstein, and it didn’t make them less guilty of sex assault.
Weeks later, NBC News stepped in. While it gets into the nuts and bolts of the court story, it paints McMahon flying the world in his private jet, in search of orphaned puppies and kittens to give to friends, who still keep in touch – like Donald Trump, John Cena and The Rock.
The same McMahon whose stories about “sneezing” and how sees it as an act of weakness. I can’t imagine the pain of carrying puppies and kittens up the steps into a private plane with a cane when you can barely walk a couple steps into a building. Some jerk might be sneezing around you, too.
The latest character in this drama – or the latest announced – is Michael Sitrick, the PR ace whose firm is considered the best media crisis company around. If you need a media crisis company, it’s not because you rescued orphaned puppies and kittens. If you need Sitrick’s, you’re either rich or have major problems.
Sitrick’s acknowledgement page on his firm’s website is one to behold. He has more nicknames than a McMahon villain and he seems to relish them.
– “One of the most accomplished practitioners of the dark arts of public relations.”
– “The Winston Wolf of Public Relations”
– “The Wizard of Spin”
– The Flack for When You’re Under Attack.”
– “The spin doctor’s spin doctor”
– And my favorite, the “Ninja Master of the Dark Art of Spin”
Winston Wolf was a character in the Quintin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction, who helped cover up an accidental murder committed by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in the backseat of their car.
Spin is another word for lying, whether one is a wizard or has their doctorate.
According to the New York Times, his list of clients feature Weinstein, Chris Brown, Halle Berry and dozens of massive corporations as well as Jeffrey Epstein. He’s also working pro bono for murdered journalist Daniel Pearl’s foundation.
He unfortunately found himself as part of the story earlier this year Hours before Epstein’s court documents were to be released in January, Sitrick’s own computers were stolen and his office burglarized, according to a story in LA Mag.
“It has to be a coincidence,” Sitrick said.
The New York Times said Sitrick is often hired by the legal team of clients, meaning he’s part of the litigation process, but that also grants him attorney-client privilege.
If you want entertainment, here it is, just remember whose expense it’s from. McMahon, his law firm and his PR firm don’t want this quietly to go through court, they want to make this a show. And they’re building the ultimate antagonist, Janel Grant.
It appears they want to push her into dropping her case or taking an easy settlement. But it also sends a message to other possible victims out there if they come forward.
Rosenberg has taken character shots at Grant since she started representing McMahon. Whether it’s in the New York Post’s article on the love letter she wrote, the motion she filed for private arbitration or a response to the recent change of heart by John Laurinaitis, who called himself an unwilling victim of McMahon until last week.
Laurinaitis’s attorney released a statement saying he was joining McMahon on an arbitration motion to force Grant to negotiate with them in the terms of the NDA she signed, then denied all of the allegations in the complaint.
This came months after his attorney said he was in fact a victim, going as far as to say WWE management knew about the Ashley Massaro incident, something the company denied for years.
Immediately after Laurinaitis announced he wasn’t a victim and none of this happened after all, Rosenberg was quick to put out a statement.
“In January 2024, Ms. Grant, a 43-year-old with a law degree, who was in love with Mr. McMahon and devastated by their break-up, filed an outrageous and false lawsuit to ruin Mr. McMahon’s career and reputation,” Rosenberg said. “Now, her false allegations are slowly unraveling. Today, Mr. Laurinaitis’ attorney confirmed his client will corroborate Mr. McMahon’s account and expose the lies within the Complaint. Despite their intense efforts, Ms. Grant’s attorneys won’t be able to suppress the truth from coming out.”
Rosenberg has plenty to say about Grant, but little to say about her allegations, the text messages in the complaint, and the times and dates that are laid out. The locations, the various corporate officers noted and the video recordings of the alleged assaults that happened in offices and meeting rooms. The fact she has a law deg
ree doesn’t mean she can’t be forced into signing a bad NDA, or you’re somehow incapable of being in bad financial straights and mental health. It doesn’t mean you can’t be sexually assaulted.
This is a precursor in case the main event comes down. A federal criminal grand jury has been convened since last summer in Southern District of New York,
Allegations WSJ said feds are looking into – like rape and sex trafficking – similar to what Grant has accused McMahon in her civil complaint. She hasn’t said a word about McMahon’s phone, who WSJ reported was taken by the feds as evidence, including other communications.
The entire showbiz promotion around McMahon’s defense shows the difference between how justice works for most people in this country and how it works for the rich and powerful.
A world where defense lawyers – bogged down in cases – keep out of media even if their clients are getting slimed and their reputations ruined before they go to trial, simply because they don’t have the time to deal with it. Ninety-nine percent of us couldn’t pay for a public relations intern, let alone a Sitrick.
It shows how justice worked for Massaro or Rita Chatterton, who accused McMahon of assault in 1992, was sued by McMahon for the accusation, only to get a million dollar payoff years later around the time of WWE’s board was investigating Grant’s accusations.
It’s also a bizarre twist on law, that an NDA is somehow has supremacy in court over the Speaking Out Act or allegations of sex abuse.
It shows how justice worked for a young woman at a Boca Raton tanning salon, whose story matches elements of Grant’s, Chatterton’s and others, where McMahon got off on a technicality and escaped an assault charge.
It means the millions in payoffs WWE had to disclose to the SEC are figments of everyone’s imagination.
Despite the sideshow that’s unfolding before us, truth and fact still matter in a court room. The same court, where a federal grand jury is convening about McMahon, recently convicted a former president.
What McMahon, Rosenberg or Sitrick say about Grant won’t make a difference in court. They can look into her motivations, her background, her character – that’s fair game. But at the end McMahon has to answer to the complaint. If he’s indicted, he’s going to answer to federal criminal charges, not an ex-employee. This is the reality, not the sideshow, and no matter what is thrown out there in the coming months, that won’t change.