On Wednesday, Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, WWE, and TKO Group Holdings were sued by a law firm on behalf of five unnamed former WWE ring boys. The lawsuit claimed that former ring announcer Melvin Phillips Jr. sexually assaulted the Ring Boys. The suit also noted that McMahon didn’t take necessary action against Phillips.
Jessica Rosenberg, Vince McMahon’s attorney, denied all the allegations. Rosenberg stated, “More than 30 years ago, the columnist Phil Mushnick tried to make headlines with these same false claims. Those allegations were never proven and ultimately became the subject of a defamation lawsuit against Mr. Mushnick. The negligence claims against Mr. McMahon that were asserted today rely on these same absurd, defamatory and utterly meritless statements by Mr. Mushnick. We will vigorously defend Mr. McMahon and are confident the court will find that these claims are untrue and unfounded.”
Greg Gutzler, attorney for former WWE ring boys, appeared on POST Wrestling, where he responded to Rosenberg.
“If you read the complaint you are going to see multiple facts, myriad facts, dozens of facts that have nothing to do with Phil Mushnick. So what do we have? We have the fact that you had Mel Phillips shuttling young boys in plain sight in front of WWE executives and wrestlers from state to state. You have him in plain sight, staying in hotel rooms with young boys. You have in plain sight, Mel Phillips engaging in sexual foot f-tishes in the ring, in front of people in the locker room, in front of wrestlers and executives. He was even provided with his own dressing room in certain areas. You have the FBI video tape where the FBI said, the Behavioral Science Unit said, this is consistent with p-dophilia and sexual foot f-tishes. You have Vince McMahon never denying that he told people that Mel Phillips had a peculiar and unnatural interest in young boys. You have the fact that Vince and Linda McMahon fired Mel Phillips in 1988 for engaging in the improper activities with young boys, and hired him back with the caveat of ‘steer clear of the kids,’ the clear acknowledgement that they knew that Mel Phillips engaged in improper activities with young boys. It was there in plain sight. And anybody who has a child or anybody with a moral compass would recognize when you put all of these facts together, you’ve got a major problem. And this person should not be hanging around young boys, certainly with the aura and the power of being affiliated with the WWE in a public facing role as the ring announcer. So when you look at all of these things, this has very little to do or nothing to do with Phil Mushnick. And I should note that the defamation lawsuit- truth is a defense, and Phil Mushnick and The New York Post paid $0 to the WWE. They walked away from that case because what they knew is that Mushnick told the truth, and there was ample other evidence outside of what Mushnick reported that show this is absolutely true. And the WWE and Vince and Linda McMahon knew it. And you also have the testimony of at least a dozen wrestlers and executives that talked about seeing it in plain sight and telling Vince McMahon, and he said, ‘I’ll take care of it.'”