World Wresting Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon, President Trump’s nominee to head the Small Business Administration, told a Senate committee Tuesday that she knew a lot about the financial strains that small businesses face because she had gone through a bankruptcy herself.
Left unstated was that the debt apparently involved promoting an event by 1970s’ daredevil stuntman Evel Knievel.
“I know what it’s like to take a hit, and I have learned it’s not how you fall, but how you get up that truly matters. Early in my career, when we were very young, my husband and I declared bankruptcy. We invested in a company we didn’t understand and trusted people we shouldn’t have. When that company went under, we were left holding the bag,” McMahon said in her opening statement.
She and her husband and business partner, Vince McMahon, tried hard to pay off the resulting debts, she said, but discovered that they could not do it. Declaring bankruptcy was a “hard decision” but the only option available to them, she said.
“We lost our home. My car was repossessed in the driveway. We had a young son and a baby on the way. We had no choice but to work hard and start building again so we could support our family,” McMahon said.
The McMahons’ bankruptcy came in 1976 after they amassed about $1 million in debt. According to a 2010 story by the Connecticut Post, their bankruptcy did not involve the WWE (or as it was once known, the World Wrestling Federation), which they did not own at the time.
The debt was partially due to investing in a televised 1974 stunt by Knievel in which he would jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon in a rocket sled. Knievel was nearly killed in the effort, saved when his parachute ejected prematurely. The McMahons also promoted a 1976 fight between boxing great Muhammad Ali and a Japanese wrestler. Ticket sales for both events were far below expectations. The McMahons also had unpaid federal tax bills totaling $142,763.
