Below are some top AEW & WWE news stories of the day, involving Rusev and Vince McMahon.
• Miro and Ricky Starks were officially granted their AEW release on Monday, allowing them to sign with any promotion of their choice.
Formerly known as Rusev in WWE, Miro last appeared in AEW since Worlds End 2023. He was earning a seven-figure salary after initially signing with the company in September 2020 on a deal set to expire in spring 2022. Before that contract ended, he agreed to a four-year extension, which would have kept him with AEW until spring 2026.
According to Fightful Select, there had been discussions about Miro’s creative direction throughout 2024, as he was healthy and ready to return to action. However, Fightful reported that “the situation had gone radio silent for quite some time before the release was official. Miro had not been brought up creatively from what we’ve heard in about six months, and most everyone we spoke to in AEW had not expected to see him again.”
There is speculation that WWE may be interested in re-signing Miro, who originally joined AEW in 2020 after leaving WWE. During his AEW run, he held the TNT Championship.
Also Read: Elektra Lopez Comments On Her WWE Release
• A federal appeals court ruled that a former attorney for Vince McMahon improperly withheld documents from a grand jury investigating his multimillion-dollar settlements with two female employees who accused him of $exual abuse. The court determined the documents were not protected by attorney-client privilege under the “crime or fraud” exception.
McMahon recently settled with the SEC, agreeing to pay a $400,000 penalty and reimburse WWE $1.33 million for undisclosed payments. While he considers the matter closed, the status of a separate grand jury investigation remains uncertain.
Here’s what AP News reported:
“The appeals court said the lower court judge found prosecutors had reasonable grounds to believe that McMahon and his lawyer illegally ‘circumvented’ the WWE’s internal controls and created false records when they concealed the employees’ claims and settlement agreements from the company, and that they made false and misleading statements to the company’s auditors — even though McMahon paid the settlements with funds that did not come from the company.
The appellate panel said that while McMahon’s lawyer submitted many materials in response to a grand jury subpoena, they also submitted a log of 208 documents that were being withheld under assertions of attorney-client privilege.
When the lawyer withheld some of the documents claiming attorney-client privilege, prosecutors asked the lower court to compel production of the records — leading to the appeal decided Monday.
The appellate judges wrote, “Because the settlement agreements resolving the Victims’ claims were ‘structured and negotiated … to keep them hidden from (the Company),’ the district court found that all communications about the claims and settlement agreements were made in furtherance of the criminal scheme to keep (the Company) and its auditors unaware of the allegations.’”
