Bizarre Lawsuit Filed Against WWE And Vince McMahon’s Family
Vince McMahon and members of his family are facing a strange lawsuit from their time working at WWE.
The immediate family of Vince McMahon is no longer a part of WWE, but they will always be associated with it. That’s because Vince was the Chairman for 40 years, his wife Linda was the long-time CEO, his daughter Stephanie McMahon was a longtime executive before moving on and his son Shane McMahon also worked for the company in several different roles.
It has been reported by PWInsider that a man named Leland Owens has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court. The lawsuit is against WWE along with Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon and Stephanie McMahon.
The lawsuit claim by Owens states that WWE owes him “unpaid wages” for his creative ideas. Owens also believes that “Vince and Stephanie disguised themselves as an agent to try and get away with all my ideas.” The ideas that Owens had were not explained in the lawsuit.
According to PWInsider: “The lawsuit also claims that after giving authorities tips on a criminal case, he told them he was a WWE fan and alleges they put him in contact with Sasha Banks and Daniel Bryan, using those names.”
In the lawsuit, it alleges that Linda McMahon used her “role as a senator” to help cover up the fact that Owens was “offered a $100,000 check.” This claim was made in the lawsuit even though Linda was never a United States Senator although she did run for office twice. Linda also worked for Donald Trump as the US President when she was in charge of Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019.
There was also a previous lawsuit by Owens against WWE and UFC that was filed on September 3rd before the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Washington by Leland Owens. In that lawsuit, Owens claimed he never got paid for ideas he gave to WWE.
The PWInsider story notes that Owens alleged that WWE sent Daniel Bryan (under that name) and Sasha Banks (acknowledging she was now Mercedes Mone in AEW) to send him a check for $100,000 as “hush money” for a comment made about his daughter by Stephanie McMahon. Owens also claimed he submitted ideas through Instagram to Paul Levesque, Mercedes and Bryan.
As for what he’s asking for, Owens wants a cease and desist from WWE’s parent company TKO Group Holding and wants “what is fair and accurate.”
It was added by PWInsider’s Mike Johnson that it’s unlikely that there will be much going forward since it appears to “stretch the fabric of reality” for most of the lawsuit claim.
From WWE’s side, they haven’t responded to the case and it likely won’t go anywhere.
Vince McMahon Documentary Premiering On Netflix
The name of Vince McMahon should be all over the news again in the coming week thanks to the six-episode documentary series about him that will premiere on Netflix on September 25th.
This year hasn’t been a good one for WWE’s former Chairman Vince McMahon after a scandalous lawsuit came out by former WWE employee Janel Grant. According to Grant’s lawsuit, McMahon sexually assaulted her and used her for sex trafficking with his friends and others who worked for WWE including former Head of Talent Relations, John Laurinaitis.
Janel Grant’s legal team addressed the upcoming Vince McMahon documentary on Netflix by stating that “Janel’s story is an important one, and we hope Netflix’s docuseries does it justice.”