"The Hitman" Has Had Enough of Vince McMahon

Greetings, all! Just popping in to tell you I have a new piece up at Slate. It's centered around an interview I did last week with wrestler Bret "The Hitman" Hart about why the new allegations against Vince McMahon have caused him to finally denounce his former boss.

Click here to read it.

A quick preview:

“It’s like Jeffrey Dahmer, Harvey Weinstein, or Jeffrey Epstein: Vince will be a joke,” Hart said. “He’ll be used for humor, and you’ll shake your head at the shock value of some joke about, ‘What did Vince McMahon do?’ He’ll always be associated with this story, especially as it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”

With a federal probe into McMahon’s sexual misconduct reportedly expanding to include the trafficking allegations, Hart may well be right.

What’s more, Hart has come to think that McMahon’s desires weren’t worth the price everyone has paid for them.

He used to be able to say that, whatever evils McMahon did, he did for the public, in service of wrestling as an art form and industry.

Now, having heard and believed the accusations about what McMahon did in private—to someone whose alleged degradation, horrible in its own right, also had no bearing on business—Hart wonders if he had it all wrong.

“I always had a respect for him,” Hart said. “Now it’s tainted. I’m embarrassed that I thought so highly of him.”

Perhaps that’s what sticks to a Teflon man: not accusations that he’s harmful and dangerous, but rather ones that say he’s pathetic and gross.

Read and share, if you get a chance!

All best,

Josie