As PWMania.com reported earlier this week, the WWE discovered an extra $5 million in unrecorded business expenditures connected to two payments made by the former WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon in 2007 and 2009. This information was revealed in a new WWE SEC filing. The $5 million may be related to President Donald Trump, a Celebrity WWE Hall of Famer who has a history with McMahon and his family, according to a new report from Wrestlenomics. It was initially believed that the payments were due to McMahon’s alleged payouts to women for non-disclosure agreements.
In the same two years, 2007 and 2009, IRS documents show that WWE donated exactly $5 million to The Donald J. Trump Foundation. Records show that the donations originated from WWE, the WWE headquarters address was used, no specific person was mentioned, and previous statements from WWE public relations staff indicated that Vince and wife Linda McMahon were directly responsible for the donations.
The Trump Foundation received the most significant donations from WWE in 2007 and 2009, totaling $4 million and $1 million, which, when expressed in round figures, equals the $5 million stated in the most recent WWE SEC filing. Trump made a rare appearance on WWE TV during these years. In a match billed “The Battle of The Billionaires” at WrestleMania 23 in 2007, Trump and McMahon supported opposing Superstars Bobby Lashley, the current WWE United States Champion, and the late Umaga. In 2009, Trump “bought” WWE RAW, then “sold” it shortly after in another storyline.
Despite the IRS filings naming WWE as The Trump Foundation contributors during those years, a WWE representative claimed in October 2012 that Vince personally donated the funds rather than the company, or both Vince and Linda. The WWE comment was made a few weeks before the election in which Linda was seeking re-election to the United States Senate.
A WWE representative later in 2016 said that “WWE paid Donald Trump appearance fees separately” and denied that donations to The Trump Foundation served as Trump’s appearance fees. This time, WWE claimed that both McMahons individually contributed to the Foundation.
“Vince and Linda McMahon made personal donations to Donald Trump’s foundation,” the spokesperson told The Huffington Post at the time.
In 2017, after WWE Chief Operating Officer Donna Goldsmith proposed the theory that the contributions were in return for Trump’s appearances, WWE made a statement that was consistent with that.
Trump had previously taken payments to The Trump Foundation in exchange for appearing in other entertainment-related activities for NBCUniversal and Comedy Central, among others.
“My guess is that [the contributions to the Trump Foundation] did come directly from Vince,” Goldsmith told Forbes in 2017. “It was probably a payment for the [2007] ‘Hair Versus Hair’ match.”
The difference in the agreed-upon value of those two sets of appearances could be reflected in Trump’s 2007 appearances at and before WWE’s biggest pay-per-view event of the year, which may have been connected to a $4 million contribution, and his 2009 appearances on RAW, which may have been linked to a less significant $1 million contribution.
Regarding the motive for paying Trump through his Foundation for appearing on WWE TV, Trump may have done so to avoid paying taxes, which is a typical move and something he has attempted to do in previous situations. Furthermore, the McMahons’ personal tax burden during those years may have been reduced by declaring a sizeable charitable payment to The Trump Foundation.
WWE has not responded as of this writing to Wrestlenomics’ question about whether the similarities in the payment amounts and years are unrelated coincidences.
