JBL believes no one has ever been able to tell Vince McMahon what to do. On Something To Wrestle, co-host Conrad Thompson brought up stories from former TNN and Spike TV executive Kevin Kay. In a clip, Kay told a story about shaking hands with McMahon after McMahon used a urinal at their first meeting in Louisville. Kay saw it as a power move. Conrad also brought up Kay saying Spike was muting WWE’s plugs for its move back to USA Network.
JBL said the stories fit the McMahon he knew, and he recalled McMahon pulling something similar on Howie Mandel. He said that from what he understood, McMahon walked out of a bathroom with wet hands on purpose to shake hands with Mandel, who is known as a germaphobe.
“Because I know he did that to Howie. He thought it was so funny, but he didn’t do it like to prove he was in charge. He did it just as a rib. You know, because he knew Howie was a germaphobe, and you know, just to see what he would do,” JBL said.
“Legendary story, but yeah, that was Vince. I mean, you can’t tell Vince what to do. There’s nobody in the world that can tell Vince what to do. I don’t care what kind of money you have. I don’t care what kind of power you have. I don’t care how tough you are,” he added.
“And the more you tell Vince you can’t do it, the more he’s going to do it. So this story sounds pretty accurate to me. And I was there for a lot of it,” JBL said.
“It was so fun when executives would come in and they think they ran things, and they would tell Vince what to do, and then Vince would do exactly the opposite just because they told him not to do it,” he added.
In 2024, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a federal lawsuit against McMahon, WWE and former executive John Laurinaitis. She alleged sexual assault, trafficking and emotional abuse. McMahon resigned from TKO the next day and denied the allegations.
Laurinaitis was dropped from the case in 2025 after reaching an agreement with Grant. In June 2026, Grant, McMahon and WWE agreed to move the case to private arbitration.Â
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