Ari Emanuel has offered his own account of the events surrounding Vince McMahon’s two departures from WWE, detailing the first Wall Street Journal report in 2022, McMahon’s return ahead of the company’s sale, and the allegations that led to his resignation from TKO and WWE roles in January 2024.
In Roll the Calls: A Memoir, the TKO Group Holdings CEO writes about his reaction to the revelations involving McMahon and the series of corporate decisions that followed. The excerpts provide a perspective from the executive who would become one of the key figures in the formation of TKO, the company created through the combination of WWE and UFC in September 2023.
McMahon’s initial departure from WWE came in July 2022, after reports alleged that he had made millions of dollars in hush-money payments to women. At that point, McMahon was WWE’s chairman and chief executive, a role he had held in various forms for decades while building the company into a global wrestling and media brand.
Emanuel recalls that he was attending Wimbledon when the first report emerged. He describes an unusually still reaction before receiving a call from McMahon.
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“As I walked out of Wimbledon, Vince called and assured me the charges were false,” Emanuel wrote. “But he also said he was going to step down, for the good of the company. His daughter, whom I’ve always remembered fondly from our first meeting, would take over.”
Stephanie McMahon did take on an expanded leadership role following her father’s departure, serving alongside Nick Khan as WWE co-CEO while also becoming chairwoman of the company’s board. Vince McMahon’s initial exit, however, did not prove permanent. He soon changed course and returned to WWE in January 2023, using his voting power to rejoin the board as the company explored strategic alternatives.
Emanuel characterizes that period as deeply unsettled. In the memoir, he calls the situation “a mess” and explains that he believed a sale and merger involving WWE and UFC offered the clearest route forward. UFC’s parent company, Endeavor, was led by Emanuel, and the eventual transaction combined the two major combat-sports properties under the TKO Group Holdings banner.
McMahon’s Return Set the Stage for WWE’s Sale
McMahon’s return to WWE was directly connected to the sale process. While he had left his executive positions in July 2022, he remained WWE’s controlling shareholder. His January 2023 return was followed by the announcement that WWE would be acquired by Endeavor, with the WWE-UFC combination becoming official in September 2023.
The arrangement placed Emanuel in charge of TKO as chief executive officer, while McMahon became executive chairman of the new company’s board. Mark Shapiro, a longtime Endeavor executive, became TKO’s president and chief operating officer.
Emanuel writes that, when he and Shapiro met with McMahon to discuss the potential merger, McMahon did not appear to fully grasp the proposal. Emanuel also says that McMahon was experiencing significant health issues at the time.
McMahon underwent serious spinal surgery in July 2023. That procedure came days after he was served with a grand-jury subpoena and search warrant. McMahon’s health had been the subject of public discussion during that stretch, though the memoir excerpts do not offer a detailed medical account beyond Emanuel’s description of his concerns.
Despite the uncertainty around McMahon’s status and the scrutiny that had followed him since 2022, the WWE-UFC deal moved forward. TKO began trading publicly in September 2023, creating a company built around two of the most recognizable brands in combat sports and sports entertainment.
The corporate combination was widely seen as a major change for WWE, ending its decades as a standalone publicly traded company. McMahon remained a prominent figure within the new structure at its launch, but his time in that position would last only a few months.
January 2024 Allegations Prompted Another Immediate Crisis
The next major development came in January 2024, when former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a civil lawsuit containing allegations of sex trafficking and abuse against McMahon. McMahon denied the allegations. The lawsuit also named WWE and John Laurinaitis as defendants.
Emanuel describes the allegations in Grant’s filing as substantially more serious than the reports that had surfaced in 2022. The TKO CEO writes that Shapiro called him shortly after the news became public and stressed the urgency of removing McMahon from the company.
“More revelations. The worst yet,” Emanuel wrote. “Vince accused of defecating on a woman during a threesome. Incredible how many things in the world of business are undreamed of in business schools. These revelations are on a different level, orders of magnitude more troubling than the previous ones.”
The conduct described in the lawsuit was alleged by Grant. It has been the subject of civil litigation, and McMahon has denied the claims made against him. The allegations represented an immediate reputational and corporate crisis for TKO, particularly because McMahon was still executive chairman when the complaint became public.
According to Emanuel’s account, Shapiro’s response was unequivocal. Emanuel writes that Shapiro told him McMahon had to be removed “all the way out the door... right the f*** now.” Emanuel then called McMahon, already believing that a resignation was necessary.
Emanuel says McMahon was receptive during that conversation. By the end of January 2024, McMahon had resigned from his positions at TKO and WWE. His departure ended his formal association with the company he founded and controlled for much of its modern history.
The significance of that resignation extended far beyond a routine executive change. McMahon had been WWE’s defining power for generations, overseeing its national expansion, the launch and growth of WrestleMania, the Monday Night War era, its transition into a major media-rights business and its eventual sale. His second exit came amid allegations that cast a shadow over both his legacy and the corporate future of the organization he built.
Grant-McMahon Matter Moves Into Private Arbitration
The civil case involving Grant and McMahon took another turn in July 2026, when the matter moved to private arbitration. That process removed the dispute from the public court track, though it did not resolve the broader public attention surrounding the allegations or the questions raised about WWE’s former leadership.
Grant has since discussed the circumstances surrounding the case in an extensive interview, including her feelings toward McMahon and the aftermath of making her allegations public. Her lawsuit remains central to the story of McMahon’s final departure from WWE and TKO, as well as the intense scrutiny of the company during the first months of its new corporate existence.
Emanuel’s memoir does not change the core timeline: McMahon stepped down from WWE in July 2022 amid reports of hush-money payments; returned in January 2023 to oversee a sale process; helped set up the WWE-UFC merger that created TKO in September 2023; and resigned again in January 2024 after Grant’s lawsuit became public.
What the book adds is a first-person account from the executive who was in position to confront McMahon during both periods. Emanuel presents the 2022 crisis as a complicated moment that ultimately led to a transformative business deal. He presents the 2024 allegations as a line that demanded a swift and definitive response.
For WWE, the events remain inseparable from the company’s transition into the TKO era. The merger gave WWE broader corporate infrastructure and placed it alongside UFC, but it also arrived while the organization was confronting the fallout from allegations involving its longtime leader. Emanuel’s recollections underline how quickly those two realities collided, forcing TKO’s leadership to make decisions with enormous consequences for the company, McMahon and WWE’s future.
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Darryl Polo
Darryl Polo is a passionate wrestling fan covering WWE, AEW, TNA and beyond. He loves great rivalries, breakout stars and the moments that keep fans talking long after the bell. How we work.