Tag: Vince McMahon

The biggest professional wrestling stories of 2023: CM Punk, TKO and more

From WWE to AEW and beyond, here were the things that stood out most in an eventful year in pro wrestling.

Take a deep breath, wrestling fans. The year 2023 is almost over.

It is understandable if you haven’t done that a whole lot over the last 12 months, as the industry has not provided many opportunities to take in a soothing sigh of relief.

There were many ups, quite a few downs, but all in all, 2023 was a banner year for professional wrestling that in hindsight will be fondly remembered as one of the most impactful in the history of the industry.

But before we look ahead to 2024, let’s take one last look back on the year’s biggest stories in professional wrestling.

Why Vince McMahon recently sold a big chunk of TKO stock

It’s not because he’s leaving WWE.

For the segment of WWE fans and pro wrestling fans in general who wish that Vince McMahon would simply retire already and leave his creation in the hands of others, a report last month that he was selling about a third of his TKO stock was seen as a potential harbinger. Maybe he was ready to cash out and depart TKO, the thinking went.

Turns out only half of that was right.

As detailed by Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso, McMahon intends to stick around TKO and “still wields great power in the company.” His reason for selling was simple: He needed the cash.

Sources within WWE, however, shared that McMahon has no plans to leave the company. Though the reasons were undisclosed, Sports Illustrated learned that McMahon needed to have the money liquid, which is why he sold such a hefty portion of his stock.

Who knows why, but where most of us might go to the ATM when we need “to have the money liquid,” billionaires can simply sell a bunch of stock shares.

Barrasso added that McMahon is working on “items assigned to him by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel” and that there are no signs their working relationship is anything but positive. Emanuel has praised McMahon publicly on several occasions since the merger deal between WWE and UFC that created TKO under the Endeavor corporate umbrella.

Hopes for McMahon to leave the company stemmed largely from the wishes of many fans to see Paul “Triple H” Levesque in charge of WWE creative, something that happened anyway under Emanuel’s oversight. It’s possible that everyone gets what they want out of this arrangement, at least for now.

And hey, the next time McMahon goes out for … well, whatever it is that billionaires eat, he definitely can take the bill.

The Undertaker, Vince McMahon ‘butted heads’ over farewell ceremony: ‘He wouldn’t let me say retirement’

The Undertaker was not allowed to use a particular word during his WWE farewell ceremony in 2020.

The Undertaker ended his in-ring WWE career almost four years ago after facing AJ Styles at WrestleMania 36 in a Boneyard match. Although it was not announced as a retirement match at the time, he later confirmed it to be his last ride.

When The Undertaker officially announced he was done in the ring, WWE held a special farewell ceremony for him at Survivor Series 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a proper sendoff. Although it was the Dead Man’s time to shine, Vince McMahon apparently banned a word from his vocabulary for that night — one that would have been appropriate to describe the situation.

On his Six Feet Under podcast, The Undertaker said that McMahon did not allow him to say the word “retirement,” as McMahon might not have believed the Phenom was finished in the ring (h/t Fightful for transcription).

In November, that was one of those times where Vince and I butted heads. My retirement. He wouldn’t let me say retirement. ‘It’s time for the Undertaker to rest in peace.’ In full character. I have these guys, all in the ring, but I’m going to be in my full character. It was like, ‘yuck.’ It was a way, it was still during COVID, it was not good. I honestly don’t think he was completely convinced at that point that I was done. I don’t think anybody was, really. There are still people out there that think I have one more.

McMahon notoriously banned words like “belt,” “strap” and “pro wrestling,” among others, but while that night was The Undertaker’s, pro wrestlers have repeatedly gone back on retirement. Just look at Ric Flair’s handful of “last” matches and Shawn Michaels’ infamous in-ring return in 2018. Anything is possible.

McMahon might not have wanted to believe it. Fans probably didn’t either. But when The Undertaker announced his retirement, he meant it, and nearly four years later, it has stuck.

Cash in, cash out: Vince McMahon is selling about a third of his TKO shares

Does Vince McMahon selling some of his TKO stock mean he sees the writing on the wall?

Vince McMahon already ceded some of his control over WWE once it became part of TKO by merging with UFC under Endeavor. Now it looks like he’s prepared to give up even more — but in return for a healthy amount of U.S. dollars.

As revealed in a TKO press release today, McMahon is selling 8.4 million shares of Class A common stock, roughly 30% of what he holds. Interestingly, both TKO CEO Ari Emanuel and COO and president Mark Shapiro are interested in purchasing some of those shares.

The release confirms that the company is not selling any stock, only McMahon, which means he’ll receive all the money from the sale. Even though the TKO stock price dipped a bit in reaction to this news, the shares he’s selling still figure to net him about $700 million.

But money is money and that’s hardly the most interesting part of this situation. A much more intriguing question is what it means for McMahon and the WWE going forward under Endeavor.

When the UFC merger was finalized, Emanuel and others said all the right things about how important McMahon was and how he’d continue to be the one in charge of the pro wrestling operation. However, it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t going to have the same level of control he was accustomed to, as evidenced by Paul “Triple H” Levesque maintaining creative control of WWE programming — a call reportedly made by Emanuel.

As Jimmy Van of Fightful noted back in the spring when the merger was first announced (well ahead of it being finalized), it’s quite possible Emanuel and Endeavor simply told McMahon what he wanted to hear to get the deal done.

Whatever the motivation, controlling even less of TKO weakens McMahon’s power that much more. And maybe this was part of his plan all along, but even if it wasn’t, he can at least take some consolation in being a big chunk of a billion dollars richer.

Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel says Vince McMahon is ‘very open’ to WWE ring sponsorships

Brand logos on and around the WWE ring seem like they are almost inevitable at this point.

There has been a noticeable increase in sponsorships this year featured in WWE programming, even predating the UFC merger. Brands like Cinnamon Toast Crunch were attached to matches at WrestleMania 39, and earlier this year, we saw LA Knight and the late Bray Wyatt facing off in a Mountain Dew-sponsored match. Corporate names have also been attached to segments on Raw and SmackDown.

Earlier this year, WWE President Nick Khan said WWE is “open to business” for ring sponsorships, as UFC also has corporate-sponsored logos across their octagon. Nothing has come of this since, but with the merger being completed, perhaps it’s not far away.

During the Endeavor Q3 earnings call this week, CEO Ari Emanuel answered a question about WWE replicating UFC’s usage of octagon sponsors by revealing that Vince McMahon is now very open to the idea (h/t Fightful for transcription).

Vince [Vince McMahon] has been very open….before he was clean in the ring and around. He is now very open to increasing the inventory that we can work with like we increased the inventory at the UFC, very happy about that and we think there are huge opportunities around the stadium. That’s a good sign. We are starting, in some territories, looking at a Friday night, Saturday night, and Monday night for both WWE, UFC, and WWE again. That will give us an indication of our ability to put that on. Once we can prove that model, I think we can take it globally and move it domestically pretty easily.

I’ll re-emphasize that there is a ton of inventory now that Vince and the team are opening up at the WWE for us.

WWE can easily make money by featuring sponsors on the ring, as it did with previous partnerships for those matches.

The main concern, however, is how these logos would be displayed and how much they take away from the action in the ring, especially if the logos are not colored black and white. Nonetheless, ring sponsorships seem inevitable, so let’s see who will be the first to have their brand prominently showcased inside the ropes.

Vince McMahon denies bad history with Dana White, says they get along very well: ‘I don’t do business that way’

Vince McMahon doesn’t feel the same way as Dana White about their past.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – It sounds like [autotag]Vince McMahon[/autotag] doesn’t feel the same way as [autotag]Dana White[/autotag] about their past.

In September, the UFC and WWE merged to form TKO, a new publicly traded company that houses the two brands. White and McMahon are now business partners under the same parent company WME, although the UFC CEO says there will be no crossover between their two brands.

In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, White said things weren’t always cordial with McMahon.

“My history with Vince isn’t a good one,” White said. “He tried to f*ck me so many times for no reason whatsoever except just to f*ck me. But that’s in the past. Now that Vince and I are allies, no one’s been a better partner than Vince.”

When asked about White’s comments, McMahon appeared to deny any bad blood.

“Busting his chops? Please, I don’t do business that way,” McMahon told MMA Junkie on his way into Tyson Fury’s boxing match with Francis Ngannou in Saudi Arabia. “I don’t bust anybody’s chops unless they get in the way. Dana and I get along very, very well. He’s really a good guy. We’re good partners and good businessmen. (If) you’re good businessmen, you get along.”

McMahon also laughed off a question about whether or not he gave White cheap seats for WrestleMania, and closed off the interview with some banter with former WWE superstar “The Undertaker,” who said he finds McMahon’s relationship with White to be “hilarious.”

“He’s a tough guy. … I’m a better businessman,” McMahon said.

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Dana White says Vince McMahon ‘tried to f— me so many times for no reason’ but is a great partner now

UFC CEO Dana White wasn’t fond of Vince McMahon in the past, but his feelings have changed since they’ve teamed up at TKO.

You know the athlete you hate when they’re on another team but love when they play for your team? That’s a pretty apt analogy for how UFC CEO Dana White feels about Vince McMahon.

White and McMahon are now co-workers, of course, since UFC and WWE were merged into one company as TKO by Endeavor. Prior to that, however, they were competitors of a sort; not in the same business but certainly competing for the entertainment dollar.

And as White told Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated, during that time, McMahon was “an absolute savage” who would try sticking it to him just to do it. Yet now that they are working toward the common success of TKO, things have changed significantly.

“My history with Vince isn’t a good one,” said White. “He tried to f— me so many times for no reason whatsoever except just to f— me. But that’s in the past. Now that Vince and I are allies, no one’s been a better partner than Vince.”

White added that he’s spoken to McMahon on the phone a number of times since the TKO merger was finalized, and that their talks have been “all added-value” conversations that he feels benefit both UFC and WWE.

Despite the fact that White has been overseeing the biggest promotion in MMA and McMahon has been the unquestioned master of pro wrestling for decades, both men have been working from parts of the same playbook when it comes to event promotion — whether they’d admit it publicly or not.

Both are also the type you’d much rather have on your side (in a business sense, anyway) instead of trying to work to defeat, so it makes sense that they’d find each other valuable teammates. Plus as White probably knows, people backstabbing each other and later becoming allies is a staple of pro wrestling, so perhaps he can chalk this up to a case of life imitating art.

Vince McMahon docuseries expected to release in ‘the first part’ of 2024

Executive producer Bill Simmons said he thinks the Vince McMahon documentary will release early next year.

A Netflix documentary providing insight about the man behind WWE, Vince McMahon, has been lingering since its initial announcement in 2020. It was once expected to release in 2022, but then reportedly had been called off when he was being investigated for sexual misconduct and hush money allegations. However, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, executive producer of the documentary, confirmed earlier this year that it was still being worked on.

At the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles, Simmons reaffirmed that the film is still happening. He also mentioned that McMahon will preview it before its release, but he will not have final say.

Speaking with the Sports Illustrated Media podcast with Jimmy Traina, Simmons said he expects the series to release on Netflix in “the first part” of 2024 (h/t Fightful for transcription).

I think it’s going to be the first part of next year. Chris Smith is directing it, I don’t know if he’s one of the five best documentary directors or one of the three, whatever shortlist there is, he’s on it. We spent a lot of time on it. I don’t want to say too much….

Simmons also confirmed that it would be “a few parts,” and explained his philosophy behind making documentaries heading into this piece about McMahon.

It’s a few parts. I’m pretty passionate about this. I think people pump…they add parts or make this stuff longer than it needs to be because that’s how you get paid more to do a documentary. I’m anti-that guy. I want these things to be the exact right length. I could never figure it out with my column, my column was always too long, but shaping a documentary is a lot like writing a column and figuring out, ‘I love that paragraph, but I have to cut it out. This moves better if I take that out.’ With documentaries, if someone is doing it correctly, they are amazing pieces of art. It’s not just the director. There are a couple of editors, but there is usually one incredible editor, which we have for this. It’s a lot of people involved and there is real TLC. You can’t think of it like, ‘we can stretch this to six hours. This could be six instead of four.’ I think that’s crazy. This is about Vince McMahon, his life, and wrestling, so obviously, it can’t be two hours.

Simmons added that while he doesn’t know how McMahon will feel about the documentary, he thinks that talking about “the last 50 years he had” makes for a “pretty good” documentary topic.

The docuseries will tell the story about the life of McMahon. But with the aforementioned revelations about him in the past two years, it will be intriguing to see what else the film uncovers about his career and controversies.

Rey Mysterio reacts to Triple H being in charge of WWE creative: ‘He’s been doing incredible’

Rey Mysterio praised Triple H’s creative work in WWE in an interview with The MMA Hour.

Since Vince McMahon stepped down in 2022, only to return and take back control from Paul “Triple H” Levesque and make changes remotely, people have been debating who is the true leader of WWE creative. This conversation only intensified when Triple H reclaimed control when the UFC-WWE merger finalized in September.

It’s obviously a significant change to the fabric of WWE, and the results are continuing to play out with more superstars being featured on Raw and SmackDown and feuds having a different look and feel to them entering the end of 2023.

WWE talent are now reacting to the ongoing changes backstage as the fallout continues. In an interview on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Rey Mysterio was asked about McMahon’s lesser role (h/t Fightful for transcription).

“That is wild. It’s wild not to see him. Even though we got used to him not being there, it’s just crazy to go to Gorilla and not see him there,” he said.

Asked if he could text Vince, Rey replied, “I’ve had texts and emails with him, not too many.”

Asked how things are going under Triple H’s leadership, Rey said, “He was part of the roster, so he understands what we do and go through. I don’t think they could have picked a better person to take that role. He’s been doing incredible. From the whole writing team, and him, and whoever the final person that gives the authorization to say, ‘that’s a go,’ it’s been doing really good. To a certain extent, we would have times where things would be changed last minute. Right now, things are flowing very smoothly, very very smooth. It’s a good atmosphere.”

McMahon had been the main man in charge during Mysterio’s multiple WWE runs, so it’s understandable that it’s seen as a noticeable shift. However, the admiration for Triple H is also noteworthy, and an obvious indication that he is now the one in charge.

Vince McMahon won’t have final say over Netflix documentary

Vince McMahon will get to see clips of the upcoming Netflix docuseries about him ahead of time, but he won’t have any say on the final cut.

After decades of being in charge of just about everything he’s been involved in, things are suddenly a little different now for Vince McMahon. Earlier this month, it became clear that he was no longer pulling the strings from afar for WWE creative, with subsequent reports suggesting that it was his new corporate boss at Endeavor who authorized that change.

McMahon is also the subject of a documentary series that will air on Netflix, with The Ringer’s Bill Simmons serving as executive producer. As it turns out, he’ll have to accept the fact that he won’t have the last word on how he’s portrayed in it either.

Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime event in Los Angeles, Simmons said the docuseries, which was originally announced three years ago, is still in the works. And while McMahon will get to see some of it prior to airing, he won’t be able to shape the final cut (h/t Fightful for the transcription).

Not the giving notes on the final cut part. He gets to look at clips.

Simmons added that he believes the series “has the chance to be really great” and one of the best projects with which he’s been involved. That’s potentially high praise, as Simmons has helped shepherd a number of highly acclaimed sports documentaries as co-founder of the “30 for 30” series during his time with ESPN.

So far, the Netflix project does not have an announced release date. This also won’t be the first documentary centered on McMahon, as VICE TV aired its special, “The Nine Lives of Vince McMahon,” last December.

The expectation, however, is that the Netflix series will dive even deeper into the background, career and controversies that have come to define McMahon. Like other aspects of his life right now, it appears he’ll just have to accept that other people will be calling the shots.

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