Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Cody Rhodes, Royal Rumble, Triple H, Vince McMahon, wrestling, wwe royal rumble

Triple H Botches Response to Vince McMahon Lawsuit

Asked about the sexual misconduct scandal surrounding Vince McMahon at the Royal Rumble press conference, Triple H touted WWE's "amazing" week.

By conventional standards, the last thing that a week when your company is sued because your former boss and father-in-law was accused of sex trafficking and sexual assault of a former employee that also involved at least one incident of him defecating on the head of the plaintiff would be considered is "amazing" or "the most exciting point business-wise that I think we've ever had." Believe it or not, however, that's how WWE Head of Creative Triple H, holding court at the press conference following last night's Royal Rumble event, described the last week. He was seemingly completely unprepared for the one question everyone knew would be coming, even with adequate time to prepare for it.

Despite getting three opportunities Saturday night to address the gravity of the accusations against Vince McMahon from a bombshell lawsuit Thursday that caused the TKO Executive Chairman to step down on Friday, Triple H claimed not to have read a lawsuit that named WWE as a defendant and caused WWE to temporarily lose a major sponsor while barely acknowledging the negative impact on an otherwise big week for WWE that was completely overshadowed by the scandal. McMahon denies the allegations and vowed to fight them after resigning. It was the second time McMahon was forced out of WWE after a 2022 investigation into hush money payments made to women for sexual misconduct allegations.

Jon Alba of Fightful asked Triple H about Vince McMahon's ouster in 2022 and how much Triple H and others in the leadership team knew about the allegations. He responded:

I'm gonna do exactly what you would expect me to do here. We just had an amazing week, and I just said a ten-year, five-billion dollar Netflix deal, Rock joining our board, we just sold out the Royal Rumble with 48,00 people in Tropicana field. and I choose to focus on the positive, and yes, there's a negative, but I just want to focus on that and just keep it to that.

Immediately after, Cameron Hawkins from The Ringer asked what's being put in place to make sure employees are safe and something like the situation in the lawsuit can't happen again. Triple H said:

I'll give you the most generalized answer that I can: everything possible. That is a very important thing to us, a very important topic to us. It's as simple as everything possible.

Finally, Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics asked Triple H if he read the lawsuit and what his reaction was. Triple H responded:

I did not. I did not. I think Cody mentioned that we all found out real-time when you were. And that's the truth. I'll go back to what I said before. This is an amazing week for us, and I just, at this point, don't even want to get bogged down in the negatives of it. I just want to focus on the positives and where we're going. We're at the most exciting time of the year for us. We're at the most exciting point business-wise that I think we've ever had. I think Cody might have said , I don't exactly remember how he said it, but the best positioning of this company since the Attitude Era. I've been through that era. I understand what it's like. I feel like we are in the middle of something that, while we might not be able to put our finger on it right now, five, ten years from now, we're gonna be saying, 'wow, what a time that was.' I want to focus on that.

As Triple H himself pointed out, it's not unexpected that he would not make a substantial comment on an ongoing legal matter, nor that he would try to redirect the conversation to other areas. But you have to at least acknowledge the "dark cloud," as one reporter put it earlier in the night, or you end up with a bunch of headlines like F4WOnline's "Triple H on Vince McMahon allegations: 'I just want to focus on the positives'," Indy 100's "Triple H calls week Vince McMahon was accused of sex trafficking 'amazing'," or CageSide Seats' less snarky "Triple H dodges, deflects questions on Vince McMahon sex trafficking lawsuit." Plus, it probably doesn't make Netflix too happy to have their new deal mentioned in response to a question about a sexual misconduct scandal.

Thankfully, there was someone on hand at the press conference that does have the corporate polish to do what Triple H botched: Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes. Cody Rhodes was not part of WWE during the time discussed in the lawsuit, is not a member of WWE's leadership team, and is not a close family member of Vince McMahon. Nevertheless, asked by Nick Hausman of Haus of Wrestling about the "dark cloud" over the weekend following the allegations against Vince McMahon and what Cody thought should be done to prevent it happening again, Rhodes, who frequently led press conferences during his time as executive vice president in AEW, responded:

That's a great question. I know as far as the news is concerned, we were finding it out and reading the same things that you guys were reading. You said a dark cloud, certainly. As far as TKO, Nick Khan, and the Board, clearly took it very seriously. Acted immediately.

And looking at the future… I don't really know the answer to that. I think somewhere is a really probably a basic tenet of just, this crew, more than ever from a roster standpoint, is very family. I've 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. This crew is very team based. And perhaps that's the ingredient, is everyone looking out for everyone, being accountable.

And I know for me as a performer and competitor, I've been through dark periods in our industry before. It might sound cheesy, but it's very reinforcing, if you're in my position, that it's 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, terrible news. I think we were able to do that. Obviously, as more news comes out we'll be seeing it just like you do.

Perhaps Triple H, like Tony Khan before him, would be better off letting Cody Rhodes run these things in the future?

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