Earlier this year, Vince McMahon stepped down from his role as WWE Executive Chairman after being hit with a lawsuit which saw ex-WWE employee Janel Grant accuse the 78-year-old of horrifying sexual abuse and people trafficking.
The allegations make for sickening reading, and even putting some of the wilder claims to one side, it's apparent McMahon may have taken advantage of his position to embark on an inappropriate relationship with a potentially vulnerable member of WWE staff.
While McMahon maintains that he'll eventually clear his name, the news came as a black eye for WWE in a week which saw them add Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to TKO's board, sign a $5+ billion deal with Netflix, and host the Royal Rumble PLE in front of a near-50,000 strong crowd.
WWE is doing its best to move on from the man who essentially created the company as we know it today, but some WWE Superstars haven't escaped being asked for their thoughts on what's happened.
Among them is Becky Lynch. Talking to the Irish Independent, "The Man" admitted it's been difficult to reconcile what we've all learned about McMahon's personal life with her own experiences of the man she credits for much of her WWE success.
"I don’t know that person, you know what I mean? That’s been hard for me. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but especially in my last run with him there, and when I told him I was pregnant, he was so good to me. Apart from the run-ins — but you have run-ins in every relationship, especially at that level — I only ever had a wonderful experience in WWE with Vince, for the most part."
"So it’s very hard to reconcile that somebody else didn’t have that experience, and that other women didn’t have that experience. Especially when I had him to thank for my dream, for my husband, for my daughter, for the life that I have now. It’s hard to see those two different people in my head, and trying to merge them as one becomes very difficult. You’re reading these horrific allegations, but about somebody that you look up to as very much almost like a father figure."
"So you have to listen to these things and that becomes very difficult, because you’ve had no [negative] experience and you want everybody to have the experience that you’ve had, because I would always love my interactions with him, and that becomes very, very difficult, especially as a woman who has been so driven in changing the way that women are treated in wrestling and making sure that it is a safe space, that we are seen as athletes, that we are taken seriously, that we are appreciated for our minds, for our body of work, and for what we do in the ring."
It's not exactly surprising to hear that the Vince backstage was very different to the one in his personal life, though we've all caught glimpses of what may be the real McMahon during his interactions with other women in WWE, particularly during the Attitude Era (who can forget him making Trish Stratus bark like a dog?).
Let us know your thoughts on Lynch's comments in the usual place.