JBL says Vince McMahon has a long track record of making legal trouble disappear by settling, and he sees WWE’s recent move to end its shareholder lawsuit before trial as exactly that kind of play.
The former WWE Champion shared the take on his Something To Wrestle podcast with Conrad Thompson, reacting to the settlement reached over the 2023 WWE-Endeavor merger that formed TKO Group.
JBL described McMahon’s approach as one inherited from his father, treating settlements as a cost of doing business rather than an admission of fault.
My dad used to always tell me a bad settlement’s better than a good lawsuit any day of the week,” JBL said. “I’ve been around Vince a long time. Vince just gets out of things. Sometimes it’s just not worth the trouble.
He went further on McMahon’s pattern of paying claimants regardless of the strength of their case.
I’ve seen Vince over the years pay people off when he thought there was no cause whatsoever, but he paid him off to get rid of them,” JBL said.
JBL characterized this as Vince paying “nuisance fees” to avoid more costly battles down the road.
JBL framed the resolution as a relief for the company, saying getting clear of the litigation “is a really good thing for TKO.”
What The Shareholder Settlement Resolved
Former WWE shareholders sued McMahon, WWE President Nick Khan, Paul Levesque, and other former directors in the Delaware Court of Chancery, alleging they breached their fiduciary duties by steering the 2023 sale toward Endeavor instead of running a fully competitive process. The plaintiffs argued WWE was undervalued in the deal that left Endeavor with 51 percent of TKO and WWE shareholders with 49 percent, and their expert pegged damages between roughly $466 million and $957 million.
A settlement in principle was reached just before the trial was set to begin on June 8, 2026, canceling the proceeding. Court official Tamara Burton confirmed the trial was called off at the parties’ request, with the settlement to be presented for court approval at a later date. The exact terms have not been released.