Cena and Johnson are both represented by the William Morris Endeavor agency, which is part of Endeavor Group – the majority owner of TKO.
A spokesperson for Johnson declined to comment. A representative for Cena didn't respond to requests for comment.
WWE in transition
This isn't the first time WWE has had to contend with controversy stemming from its former longtime leader. McMahon was acquitted of federal criminal charges in the early 1990s related to the steroid scandal that engulfed the wrestling world at the time.
In 2022, he briefly stepped down as WWE's leader after the Journal reported that he paid millions of dollars to multiple women to cover up his alleged extramarital affairs. The Journal also reported that other women had come forward with sexual misconduct allegations. WWE amended its financial reports to reflect the payments. McMahon denied all wrongdoing.
His daughter helped take over leadership of the company in the interim, but McMahon-Levesque resigned when her father, who owned a controlling stake in WWE, returned in early 2023. McMahon then engineered a deal to merge the company with Endeavor Group's UFC to form TKO. Longtime Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel is the CEO of both Endeavor and TKO.
That deal, announced in April 2023, made McMahon the executive chairman of the new company, and he gave up majority control of WWE. At the time, he told CNBC he wouldn't be "in the weeds" with creative decisions but he would weigh in on big decisions.
That marked a big shift for McMahon. His family has been in the business dating back to the early 20th century. After buying the company from his father, who was known as "Vince Sr.,", the younger McMahon then employed flamboyant superstars such as Hulk Hogan and the Rock, staging glitzy pay-per-view events like WrestleMania. to build it into an international sensation. And while WWE is still defined in part by the family, McMahon's daughter and son-in-law are publicly attempting to push the brand into the future.
At WrestleMania 40, held earlier this month in Philadelphia, McMahon-Levesque surprised the crowd with an appearance and hailed her husband's leadership.
"Every Wrestlemania is special for its own reason, but I think WrestleMania 40 might be the one I'm most proud of, because this is the first WrestleMania of the Paul Levesque era," she said. (Linda McMahon joined her daughter backstage, according to an Instagram photo posted by wrestling star Charlotte Flair.) Levesque himself proclaimed a "new era" for WWE.
It was a significant moment for the brand, coming during the first WrestleMania since the Grant lawsuit -- and it's the first one under TKO's management. Still, some rank-and-file WWE employees have griped that the company hasn't done more to address the situation, according to an insider. After McMahon quit, Shapiro told a global town hall for both TKO and Endeavor employees "in no uncertain terms" that the former wrestling boss wouldn't return, according to another insider. Shapiro also assured employees that Levesque and WWE President Nick Khan have his support, this person said.
Otherwise, WWE is more relaxed since McMahon resigned in January, sources said. When McMahon was still running things, he would come in late in the afternoon and often stay until around midnight or beyond, two current employees said. (His office at WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, is unoccupied but otherwise intact, according to an executive, who called it "spooky.") He had a reputation for being capricious and quick to fire employees, which generated fear and created a chilling effect, according to sources.
Now there's more levity and freedom to make a mistake or suggest an idea, some employees said.
The current leadership operates more conventionally, giving underperforming employees a standard progress report and opportunities to improve before taking action, they added.
Some McMahon loyalists remain, but one employee said: "WWE is actually a really great place to work, and Vince distracted from that. It's been much better since he left." Another said: "People feel like they're on steadier ground."
The company, meanwhile, is charting its post-McMahon course with the help of lucrative media rights deals. In September, WWE signed a $1.4 billion deal with NBC News' parent company, NBCUniversal, for domestic rights to "Friday Night SmackDown." In January, it inked a 10-year, $5 billion pact with Netflix to move its flagship "Raw" show and other programs to the streaming giant next year. WWE announced both agreements after it became part of TKO and McMahon ceded much of his official control over the brand.
There's yet another sign suggesting that McMahon's distance from WWE is more than temporary: He has sold hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of shares in TKO since November, a sizable chunk of those sales coming after he resigned in January. That's different from when he briefly stepped down in 2022.
"This time, it's like, OK, now, it's over-over," one of the insiders said.