According to court documents it looks like “Project Stunner” might be at the center of the shareholder lawsuit against WWE and it parent company Endeavor.
The class-action shareholder complaint takes issue with the how WWE was sold and eventually merged and that Vince McMahon and other WWE board members breached their fiduciary duties to the shareholders, didn’t have their best interests in mind.
Shareholders claim that McMahon and others orchestrated the sale to Endeavor and didn’t explore other offers that were or could have been made. The idea was to keep McMahon in power in some fashion.
McMahon and the other plaintiffs including Nick Khan, Paul Levesque, WWE former executives and board members George Barrios and Michelle Wilson named in the suit have denied the allegations.
In publicly released documents procured by Post Wrestling’s Brandon Thurston reveal more about the accusations and what might have been going behind the scenes when it came to “Project Stunner” as it was called by insiders.
Some of the new details are:
The shareholders claim McMahon’s retirement was all part of Project Stunner as upon McMahon’s retirement, current TKO President allegedly sent a text message that laid out how Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon would now step in for McMahon and that he would eventually move ahead appointing a new board or making the company private. “The WWE is coming to us. The race is on. The courtship is on,” he wrote.
That CEO and Executive Chairman of Endeavor, Ari Emanuel, telling McMahon: “I will be your greatest partner” even though McMahon was “retired”.
The Raine Group served as a financial advisor to WWE during the merger process with Endeavor. It is claimed that managing director Christopher Donini sent details of “Project Stunner” to Endeavor executives and that there was a Signal group chat among the individuals involved. The shareholders believe this also proves that McMahon was acting on his own and not representing the board. McMahon was return to the board adding and removing members.
Evidence of this clandestine Signal group as McMahon texting Khan about WrestleMania 40.
Khan writes back: “Langis.”
McMahon askes for clarification.
Khan texts: “Read it backwards!”.
The trial is scheduled to begin in June. The plaintiffs are seeking financial damages and could be ordered additional compensation at the court’s discretion. They could also order changes to how the company is run but since this is a civil suit there is no jail time on the table, no undoing of the deal itself and no criminal verdict.
