Shawn Michaels speaks on the allegations against Vince McMahon and the policies in place to protect NXT Superstars and staff.
Following Vince McMahon's resignation from WWE and the TKO Group Holdings board of directors amid allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking, Shawn Michaels was asked by Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp during the media call prior to WWE NXT Vengeance Day 2024 what policies could be put in place to protect vulnerable talent.
Michaels called the ongoing situation an incredibly sad one and said that, while he is not involved on the corporate end of things, he does his best to foster a safe environment for all of the men and women in NXT.
"It’s an incredibly sad situation. As everyone knows, I have very little and absolutely nothing to do, and gladly so, with the corporate stuff that goes on. We try to focus here in NXT on the men and women that come through these doors and we do. I think we foster a safe and supportive atmosphere down here. I know that they reinstalled and upgraded I think in 2022, some of those regulations and whatnot. But look, we’re always conscious about that and one thing that I do, it’s incredibly important to support the talent and give them a safe working environment. I’d like to think that we do that absolutely, but look, we will always continue to try and be better about that and I’m very glad to say that I think we do a really fantastic job down here.”
Michaels was later asked by Jon Alba if he had had any conversations with talent and employees in regard to the moves that would be made to promote a safe working environment. Michaels again reiterated that the situation sucks but noted that the brand as a whole is moving forward and feeling extremely positive in regards to the future and helping the developmental talent move closer towards their dreams.
“Well, so look, we obviously — everyone is aware of the situation and understands it. Like I said, it’s an incredibly sad situation. I can sit here and say it sucks, but we’ve always — and I’ve mentioned it to you all in the past, we take that very seriously. I take all of the youth that come through here incredibly seriously because this is a tough line of work, regardless of what’s going on. Leaving home and coming here and pursuing your dreams is a big thing that we take incredibly seriously and we understand that young men and women that come through our doors are impressionable," he said. "So we absolutely encourage the openness and again, telling everyone to please tell us the truth and let us know how we can help. That’s something that has been here for a long time and we continue to do our best to improve on that because it is, it’s one of the most important things to me is to be able to ask those questions you’re afraid to ask. We certainly empower them to do that and give them the opportunity to do that. Right now, I feel like everybody — I’m not really trying to spin it, coming off of Royal Rumble weekend, and even going into Vengeance Day, I think that the talent in WWE and in NXT are extremely excited about the future. Look, I know we are as well and we’re looking to capitalize that at Vengeance Day. Tough situation like I said, but I got to tell you from a talent standpoint, we feel like the windows of heaven have opened up and we’re ready to go forward.”
Shawn Michaels was later asked by Stephanie Hypes about the policies in place regarding talent having safe individuals to speak to should a problem rise and he noted that those programs are in place within the WWE Performance Center and they have outside help as well.
“We absolutely have all of those policies in place. As I said, we upgraded them in 2022. I have no doubt that they’ll be looking at continuing to improve those, but we absolutely do. We have numerous people on our medical team for outreach to go to outside of the Performance Center. We do understand that I can look at a talent and my head writer and my coaches, as they do, we can tell them to tell us the truth or express to us what’s going on. But as you know, they may not feel comfortable doing that, so we also provide help outside of here as well and have people that we can work with to get them in a complete objective environment that isn’t associated with the WWE or NXT in that respect. Again, because we, we do. Especially here. Again, we want everybody to be focused on what it is there doing and not have any struggles going forward. Again, I like to think we do a great job here and that’s seen on a regular basis.”
Triple H was asked about Vince McMahon following the WWE Royal Rumble and at the time, he noted that he wanted to focus on the positives of the event rather than the allegations. Read his comments here.
Learn more about the overall allegations at this link.
Fightful will have live coverage of WWE NXT Vengeance Day on February 4. Fans can check out the full card here.
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