Ronda Rousey says WWE must “clean out” Vince McMahon’s “cronies”

WWE owner Ari Emanuel must “clean out” Vince McMahon’s “cronies” if he is to move the company away from its “dysfunctional” past.

That is the frank view of former WWE star Ronda Rousey, who feels McMahon’s influence is still too heavily felt inside the company, despite his departure from the board of directors earlier this year.

Former UFC champion, Rousey, joined the WWE officially in 2018 after a successful MMA career and enjoyed five years with the promotion, winning the Smackdown and Raw women’s championship, as well as the 2022 women’s Royal Rumble.

Rousey retired from wrestling in 2023 and has been vocal with her opinions on McMahon and the environment that was fostered within the WWE.

McMahon resigned from his post with the organization and its parent company in January amid sexual misconduct allegations against him by a former employee. He has denied the allegations.

However, Rousey has claimed McMahon still “informally” runs the WWE and he created a “fundamentally sick environment” at the company.

And she has urged Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor who own both the WWE and UFC, to “clean house”.

“Yeah, I think we all did and they made sure to make us feel that way,” Rousey told the Diary of a CEO podcast, when asked if she felt expendable to the WWE.

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“His cronies are still there. When the stuff started coming out and Vince was ‘gone’ before, he was still just calling it in and running the company.

“Bruce Prichard, who is still there now as head of creative, or whatever title they gave him, is just taking orders from Vince and running the company through him.

“So when Vince was resigned formally because of all the sexual allegations coming out, he was still running the company informally and I think he still is to this day.

“The girls in the locker room, I absolutely love them. I think Steph (McMahon) and Triple H are doing their best but Vince McMahon just created a fundamentally sick environment.

“I think if Ari Emanuel is going to make this multi-billion dollar dysfunctional company into one that functions, he has got to clean out all of Vince’s cronies, he has got to completely clean house and remove Vince’s influence completely.

“Nobody is asking me but that is just what I experienced after Vince was gone. He was still running the show through people that he had hired in the past.”