Excerpts of Ariel Emanuel’s new book, “Roll the Calls: A Memoir,” have emerged online following its release this week, and the TKO Group Holdings CEO did not hold back on details regarding Vince McMahon’s two departures from WWE, the first following the Wall Street Journal report in July 2022, alleging the former chairman paid millions of dollars in hush money payouts to various women.
POST Wrestling provided the excerpts of Emanuel’s book, which included the story of just when the high-ranking executive first found out about the WSJ report. Emanuel wrote that he was at Wimbledon when the news broke. He said he did something unusual for him, he stared at his phone, then put it back in his pocket.
“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. A short time after that, however, Vince changed his mind and took back the company.”
Emanuel called it “a mess” an said he saw only one solution: pitching to McMahon to sell the company to merge with UFC. The idea would eventually come to fruition and create TKO Group Holdings in September 2023, something McMahon returned to the company following his initial July 2022 departure to oversee.
When Emanuel and Mark Shapiro, now president of TKO, sat McMahon down to talk about a potential merger, Emanuel said McMahon “seemed not to fully understand,” and wrote that he was having “all manner of health problems.” McMahon underwent a serious spine operation in July 2023, amid reports of other health issues, just days he was served a grand jury subpoena and search warrant.
Emanuel recalls heinous details in January 2024 report
POST Wrestling also provided a portion of the book where Emanuel wrote about the next bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal, released in January 2024 that outlined former WWE employee Janel Grant’s shocking allegations in a civil lawsuit of sex trafficking and abuse at the hands of McMahon.
“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.”
Emanuel wrote that Shapiro called him moments after the news broke and told him they had to get McMahon “all the way out the door… right the f*** now.” Emanuel outlined their call to McMahon immediately after that conversation, knowing what needed to be done. He said McMahon was receptive.
McMahon would once again resign from his positions within WWE at the end of January 2024. Grant and McMahon would move to private arbitration in July 2026. Grant has since opened up to POST Wrestling’s John Pollock in an in-depth interview about the entire situation, from her empathy toward McMahon, to the aftermath of her allegations becoming public.
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