Allegations against Vince McMahon hit the WWE right before Royal Rumble last week, so it wasn’t surprising that COO Paul “Triple H” Levesque was asked about it at the Rumble press conference. However, he seemingly had no strategy to talk about, instead focusing on “the positives” of the WWE.
The Royal Rumble marks an exciting time for wrestling fans in the lead up to Wrestlemania. We saw as both Bayley and Cody Rhodes took home their respective wins and picked who they were facing off against in title matches at Wrestlemania 41. During the press conference after the show, a number of male journalists asked Levesque (and Cody Rhodes) about the Vince McMahon sexual assault allegations and took the heat off of the two female journalists in the room. It’s important to note this because it did make me proud to see men pushing back against those in charge of the WWE and not leaving it to the few female journalists in the room.
What was upsetting though was Levesque’s non-answer to the question.
A new change for the WWE?
The journalists asked Triple H about the allegations and when they knew of what McMahon was accused of doing. While confirming that he learned at the same time the public did, Levesque’s response to the situation was a bit frustrating.
When asked outright about the allegations aimed at McMahon, Levesque opted not to answer journalist Jon Alba and instead said he wanted to focus on the positives.
He also, as of Saturday night, said that he had not read the case against McMahon and continued to double down on wanting to focus on the positives.
Levesque was then asked what was being put in place by the WWE to make sure that employees were not feeling taken advantage of. He said that they were working to do “everything possible” to make sure those in positions of power cannot abuse that power.
For the most part, Levesque’s non-answers were disappointing. On one hand, keeping comments limited could have been a legal move. But on the other hand, he still could’ve come a bit more prepared, considering that he also claimed that the week prior to the Rumble was “an amazing week.”
What was less disappointing came from Cody Rhodes’ answer when he was asked about the allegations and the “dark cloud” hanging over the WWE.
Stars who know how to talk about the situation
Rhodes, who had just won his second consecutive Royal Rumble, was asked about the McMahon allegations. While many online have criticized the question being asked of Rhodes when he is not an executive or in power in the company, his response did leave me a little more hopeful for the chance of change in the WWE than Levesque’s comments did.
Rhodes was a former executive at AEW, meaning he knows how the business side of things works. While he doesn’t have that power at the WWE, he did talk about how the new slate of WWE stars made him believe that they would come out of this dark cloud.
“I know, as far as the news is concerned, we were finding it out and reading the same things that you guys were reading,” Rhodes said. “You said a dark cloud, certainly. As far as TKO, Nick Khan and the Board clearly took it very seriously and acted immediately. Looking at the future, you know, I don’t know the answer to that, and I think somewhere is probably a very basic tenet of just: this crew, more than ever from a roster standpoint, is very family. Never seen anything like this. Most of the time, wrestling locker rooms are fighting, talking trash about each other, making fun of each other, sandbagging each other in the ring, all that nonsense.”
He went on to talk about how this WWE era is different: “This crew is very team-based, and perhaps that’s the ingredient: everyone is looking out for everyone. Being accountable. For me as a performer and competitor, I’ve been through dark periods in our industry before, and it might sound cheesy, but it’s very reinforcing, if you’re in my position, that it’s [now] a time when ‘Hey, we got 50,000 people out here, I want to give them something else from this weekend that isn’t a terrible situation and terrible news.’ I think we were able to do that, and obviously, as more news comes out, we’ll be seeing it just like you do.”
Cody Rhodes’ response left me a bit more hopeful for the future of the WWE. And I do hope that Levesque was right in saying they were doing “everything possible” to fix the power structure currently in place at the company. But there still needs to be actual answers on his side of things.
(featurd image: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
