In this corner, the CEO of the extremely popular World Wrestling Entertainment. And in this corner, 26 creditors owed about $1 million from the CEO’s 1976 bankruptcy. It sounds like a heavyweight legal battle may be brewing, but wait. The Big Boss is throwing in the towel. Linda McMahon says she will make good on those 36 year-old debts after being confronted about them by a New London, Connecticut newspaper last month.
McMahon weaves the bankruptcy into the rags-to-riches story she is using now to run for a United States Senate seat. Her opponent has been using that bankruptcy against her, claiming she stiffed private creditors despite earning a personal fortune at WWE. McMahon claimed she had no documentation, but The Day of New London was able to turn up records detailing the amounts owed to those 26 creditors, who long ago had given up on ever recovering their money.
McMahon and her husband Vince say they are trying to locate all the people they still owe and make good on their obligations. Linda told reporters, “We feel it’s the right thing to do to pay them in full, including an adjustment for inflation of four times the initial amount as shown on the list of creditors.” Checks are already being sent out.
The McMahons are also repaying over $17,000 to a union pension and health care fund at a cement plant the McMahons once used as an investment. A woman who was owed $33,000 for a horse farm, another failed McMahon investment, said she was surprised and delighted to receive the unexpected check. She wouldn’t say how much she got. And in what is probably a first in a Senate campaign, McMahon’s handlers are positioning the bankruptcy as character-building. Having lost everything, they say, she is in a better position to understand what struggling families are going through today.
Source: The Associated Press, “McMahon says she will repay bankruptcy debts,” Sep. 21, 2012