Vince McMahon Blames WWE Superstar Injuries For Declining Numbers, Credits Ronda Rousey

WWE’s Q1 results saw a huge drop in the stock on Thursday, but Vince McMahon is puting on a smiley face.

During the quarterly investor call, McMahon pointed the finger at former WWE and UFC Champion Ronda Rousey, and put her over accordingly. He credited her for increasing the profile of the women’s division to the point it headlined WrestleMania 35.

“Just speaking about Ronda, Ronda has done extraordinary job for us. Her challenge was to bring the entire women’s division up and, that was our main event at this year’s WrestleMania — involving Ronda. So Ronda’s task that she chose, and of course it’s great for us is to build that whole division, have more visibility on that division, and to make stars. To make stars that you have stories where even after Ronda leaves. So when you look at what happened in WrestleMania, with Becky Lynch and Charlotte and others, the entire division. The focal point and the stories that are coming out of that — Ronda did an awesome job,” said McMahon.

WWE is seeing declining numbers on merchandise, live event attendance, television viewership and ratings. According to McMahon, this is all easily blameable on superstar absences — something in which has been used as an excuse before.

“During the quarter, we continued to execute our strategy and achieved targeted financial results. While engagement metrics over the past two quarters were impacted by Superstar absences (injuries) , we believe they will improve as our talent return and we launch our new season following a successful WrestleMania. We remain excited about the future — particularly with our debut on Fox in October (with Smackdown),” said McMahon.

You can see Fightful’s daliy updated list of injuries at this link.