Former WWE women’s champion Ronda Rousey believes former chairman Vince McMahon will still have control in the professional wrestling company while his ‘avatar’ Bruce Prichard retains his leadership role within WWE.
McMahon stepped down from WWE parent company TKO on Friday amid claims from former employee Janel Grant that she was sexually abused and trafficked by him to his wrestlers and executives.
Prichard has not been linked to any of the allegations, but has worked for WWE for the majority of the last four decades, including in his current role as an executive director on the creative team.
WWE’s creative team is responsible for the scripts of promos and storylines that make up every show. McMahon long had the final say over creative decisions within the company.
Rousey had two different stints with the WWE after ending her UFC career, one from 2018-19, and another from 2022-23.
Vince McMahon stepped down from WWE parent company TKO over the sexual-abuse claims
Ronda Rousey is a former WWE and UFC champion and spoke out on X about the resignation
Rousey McMahon will still have influence in WWE through his ‘avatar’ Bruce Prichard
‘Bruce Prichard is basically Vince’s avatar, if he’s still around Vince still has a hand in the business,’ Rousey said on X. ‘Vince was still running things through Bruce when he was “gone” before.’
Rousey references McMahon’s first retirement from WWE, after the Wall Street Journal revealed more than $12 million in hush payments McMahon had given out over the years in July 2022.
The 78-year-old McMahon returned to the company last January with the intent of selling WWE, which he did to Endeavor for $9.2 billion in April 2023.
McMahon has denied Grant’s claims made against him, saying in a statement to DailyMail.com: ‘I stand by my prior statement that Ms. Grant’s lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and is a vindictive distortion of the truth.’
Taking the bulk of the responsibilities formerly held by McMahon within WWE is son-in-law, Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, who closely works with Pritchard.
Levesque mostly deflected questions about the claims against McMahon and his resignation early Sunday morning as part of a WWE post-show press conference, the company’s first media availability since the allegations became public.
‘I choose to focus on the positive and yes, there’s a negative but I want to focus on that and just keep it to that,’ Levesque said.
Not declining to answer questions on McMahon was WWE wrestler Cody Rhodes, one of the company’s biggest stars who Prichard has put a lot of stock into as he’ll main event WrestleMania for the second consecutive year.
Prichard is a long-standing WWE employee and worked for McMahon for over three decades
Rousey’s last WWE match was against fellow MMA fighter turned pro wrestler Shayna Baszler
Rhodes, a former founding vice president at rival All Elite Wrestling, agreed with a reporter that there is a ‘dark cloud’ over WWE at the moment because of the allegations against McMahon.
‘I know, as far as the news is concerned, we were finding it out and reading the same things that you guys were reading,’ Rhodes said. ‘You said a dark cloud, certainly. As far as TKO, [WWE president] Nick Khan and the board clearly took it very seriously, acted immediately.’
Pritchard has yet to comment on the claims against McMahon, or responded to Rousey’s social-media message.
Rousey last wrestled for WWE in August and has since made appearances on the independent circuit since leaving the company, as well as one television match for AEW-backed Ring of Honor.