Ex-WWE Star Wants Criminal Investigation Into Horrific Vince McMahon Claims
Former WWE Intercontinental Champion Lance Storm has given his reaction to the allegations against Vince McMahon and thinks they have all the hallmarks of a sexual predator.
Vince McMahon is facing sexual assault and sex trafficking claims in a bombshell new lawsuit filed by a former WWE employee.
The accusations have already had widespread repercussions in WWE as Vince McMahon has resigned as Executive Chairman of TKO. Unlike his retirement, in 2022, McMahon is no longer a majority shareholder with enough voting power to force his way back into the company so it looks like his time in WWE is over for good.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live, Lance Storm expressed his utter revulsion at the accusations made against Vince McMahon and thinks the power dynamic between McMahon and the alleged victim brings the question of consent into play:
I read the entire 67-page filing and it is unbelievably stomach-churning. It is just – your jaw is just absolutely hanging open with the absolutely appalling, gross – it’s horrible.
Then Vince’s statement, the one he made with the “didn’t knowingly take part in wrong-doing” or something. I’m assuming he’s going to claim it was consensual thus it’s fine but we talked about it when there was just news that there was an NDA. I pointed out that with the power dynamic with him being head of the company and her being a very lowly employee, it’s hard to consider it consent when there is such a power dynamic involved. Then I called BS on consent.
I suppose there’s the possibility that she was gung-ho but with that power dynamic, there is that coercion element to it. Obviously, if you read the statement and the woman is absolutely claiming to have been groomed, coerced, and pressured, it sounds very, very believable.
Vince McMahon Likened To Jeffrey Epstein
Storm likened the allegations to that of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein who had Ghislaine Maxell recruit women and girls for him and questions if WWE had discovered evidence of this behaviour in their investigation into him in 2022:
It seemed almost textbook sexual predator. Everyone’s making the [Harvey] Weinstein analogy but to me, it’s more a [Jeffrey] Epstein analogy assuming it’s true. I hope there’s a criminal investigation, I hope that the search warrant produced phone records that can fairly determine what was really going on. My biggest question is has anyone looked into this building manager that sent the woman to Vince?
Maybe it was someone who was like ‘Hey this guy’s rich, he’s helped people before maybe he can help you out’ or maybe they’re Ghislaine Maxwell and recruited [the accuser]. That’s someone that has to be looked at given they were the one who sent her to Vince and confided in her.
That’s just a horrible part of the grooming process and the fact that any of these details were out, and they should have been if [WWE] investigated and TKO still put the guy in the position he was in is horrifying.
Storm then called for there to be a criminal investigation into the situation and said there could be a case for McMahon running prostitution out of WWE’s HQ should the allegations be true:
[…] There’s way too many details for there not to be some horrific sexual conduct so really it comes down to consent and again there’s the issue of coercion. Even if, I don’t believe this to be the case, I’m not blaming her in any way, shape, or form but for the sake of argument, let’s say she was gung-ho, and legitimately consented and was keen on this whole thing.
Even with that Vince put his girlfriend, his sex toy on company payroll and then according to text messages not only pimped her out to himself but pimped her out to company employees on company time, on the company’s dime, in the office. To me, that’s criminal, that sounds a lot like running prostitution out of the headquarters of the company.
Then obviously you look at it the other way and she was coerced, threatened, manipulated, groomed, then it’s like he’s running his sex slave through payroll? And participating in, according to her claims, rape in the office. The best case scenario is horrible, the worst case scenario is just f*cking horrifying. And I hope there is an independent criminal investigation into this because this is one of the most appalling things I’ve ever read, heard about in a movie, read in a book. It’s just unbelievably horrific.
Lance Storm also noted that despite stories about McMahon over the years doing the rounds, he never thought he could be involved in something like this but when reading the document nothing sounded unbelievable to him:
Reading this thing, never in a million years would I have expected Vince to have been involved in anything like this or be someone like this. But never once reading this 67-page filing did I have in the back of my mind ‘no way, that didn’t happen.’ It read believably and I don’t know what that says about him, me or who but never in my wildest nightmares did I ever think anything like that could be possible.
Vince McMahon has called the accusations “replete with lies” and has vowed to fight to clear his name. The lawsuit calls for a jury trial but if it gets that far remains to be seen.
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