It’s been an interesting week for Vince McMahon as the WWE board looks into a hush-money settlement he reportedly made with a former employee he was in a sexual relationship with as he, at least temporarily, stepped down as CEO and Chairman of the billion-dollar company he built.
He can focus his legal attention on that matter now that he has settled the wrongful termination lawsuit that former XFL commissioner Oliver Luck brought against him last year.
Luck was suing McMahon for around $24 million in compensation after the former XFL boss fired him in April 2020. The terms of the settlement are unknown. The case had been ready to go to jury selection on July 11.
“The parties reached an agreement to resolve this case on June 16, 2022,” Luck’s attorney Paul Dobrowski wrote.
It’s hard not to imagine the timing of McMahon’s new issues had something to do with the settlement, especially since it would have given Luck’s team access to the financial information that the longtime WWE head honcho might not have wanted out there.
As the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to officially end the XFL’s season, McMahon fired Luck with cause on April 9, 2020. McMahon cited Luck’s disclosure of confidential information to his brother-in-law, use of his company phone for personal matters, abandoning his position at the start of the pandemic, and signing WR Antonio Callaway to a contract against McMahon’s specific wishes that the league employs anyone with legal or morally questionable issues. The next day, the XFL officially folded for the second time, and four days later, the league’s parent company filed for bankruptcy.
Luck argued that McMahon’s reasons for firing him were merely ways to avoid the contractually required payments owed and he expected his full five-year salary to be honored. A judge threw out all of McMahon’s reasons except for the Callaway hiring, which limited his argument severely. And even then, the fact Callaway was signed two months before Luck’s firing didn’t exactly line up.
While it’s unlikely that Luck got everything that he was owed per his contract, he’s probably happy to be done dealing with McMahon. Depending on how the WWE board investigation shakes out, a lot of other people are about to say the same thing.
[SBJ]
