World Wrestling Entertainment said Tuesday an independent board probe of former CEO Vince McMahon showed additional unrecorded payments of $5 million, bringing the total to $19.6 million. McMahon resigned from all positions at WWE on July 22 after news broke and the company acknowledged they were investigating him for misconduct and subsequent payouts to women. He remains a stockholder with a controlling interest in the company.
Vince McMahon is stepping aside as CEO and board chairman of WWE amid an ongoing investigation into claims of misconduct by himself and head of talent relations John Laurinaitis, the company announced Friday. Stephanie McMahon, Vince’s daughter who took a leave of absence last month from her role as the company’s chief marketing officer, will serve as interim CEO and chairman.
World Wrestling Entertainment is starting to produce fictionalized TV shows, part of an effort to generate more revenue outside of the wrestling ring and capitalize on streaming services’ growing hunger for fresh content. The company, which runs the world’s most famous wrestling league, said it has two scripted TV series in the works: a Spanish-language comedy about an aspiring female wrestler in Mexico for Netflix and a drama about a fictional family that runs a wrestling company for NBCUniversal.
The sports entertainment giant and the cable channel have signed a multi-year expansion of their programming partnership. The new deal covers more than 130 hours of programming that will run on A&E’s platforms, and be distributed internationally by A+E Networks.
Exclusives
Major League Wrestling is accusing WWE and its CEO Vince McMahon of forcing Tubi to scuttle a streaming deal with MLW in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday in California, also goes on to accuse McMahon of intimidating Vice TV, which had a programming deal with MLW, out of airing more content from the upstart wrestling league.
WWE is the latest entertainment company to catch NFT fever. The wrestling entertainment producer inked an exclusive, multiyear deal with Fox Entertainment’s Blockchain Creative Labs to launch an NFT marketplace for licensed digital WWE tokens and collectibles.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Triple H walked with his arms crossed like an X — his signature Degeneration X symbol — with his 7-foot tag-team partner Joel Embiid to ring a ceremonial bell last month before a Philadelphia 76ers playoff game. His theme music blared through the arena and nearly 19,000 fans hanging from the rafters roared when […]
Two major moves will happen over the next six weeks — the WWE Network’s move to Peacock on March 18, along with the search for a new home for the ThunderDome, which is where Raw and Smackdown are being held due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Peacock has entered the ring as the newest home for World Wrestling Entertainment content. Beginning Thursday, March 18, WWE Network will exclusively be available via NBCUniversal’s streaming service. TVLine has confirmed that the standalone WWE Network streamer, which launched in February 2014, will in turn shut down in March as the content moves to Peacock.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City agreed with a federal judge in Connecticut who tossed the lawsuits two years ago, saying many of the claims were frivolous or filed after the statute of limitations expired. Stamford, Conn.-based WWE denied the suit’s allegations.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A South Carolina man who stalked a 26-year-old WWE star for years and spent eight months planning to kidnap her was arrested Sunday after breaking into her home near Tampa, sheriff’s officials said. Phillip A. Thomas II, 24, of Cordesville, South Carolina, was arrested early Sunday for attempting to carry out […]
World Wrestling Entertainment announced Monday a free – and commercial-free – version of its streaming network, with access to over 15,000 titles. The service will offer recent episodes of programs such as Monday Night Raw, Friday Night SmackDown and NXT, along with legacy pay-per-view programming and matches from the wrestling powerhouses’s Raw Talk, Monday Night War and Ride Along. Fans will also get free access to weekly highlights including Top 10 and The Best of WWE.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The body of former World Wrestling Entertainment pro Shad Gaspard was found early Wednesday on Los Angeles’ Venice Beach, after he was caught in a rip current last weekend, police said. Patrol officers were flagged down around 1:25 a.m. by a person reporting that a body had washed ashore, a Police […]
Of all the sports ESPN has shown over the years, professional wrestling matches from WWE haven’t really been on the list. That will change this weekend. For three Sundays, the Disney-owned sports-media giant will air classic WrestleMania events on its flagship cable network and stream them on its mobile app.
WWE stock has sunk sub-$40 per share in premarket trading Thursday, following the pro wrestling company’s release of 4Q and full-year 2019 financials. While WWE reported Thursday it beat fourth-quarter 2019 earnings estimates, the company missed on revenue expectations, despite reaching a record high thanks to its big SmackDown on Fox deal.
Fake fights are making real money, but industry leader WWE still looks vulnerable.
The upstart promotion’s Dynamite premiere pulled in solid numbers Wednesday, beating USA’s NXT head to head.
TVN Focus On Advertising | Tag Team Of Fox, WWE Ready To Wrestle
Friday Night SmackDown, as the latest incarnation is called, will begin Friday at 8 p.m. ET. Both Fox and the WWE are betting the show’s return to broadcast primetime will make a big impression on viewers and big bucks from advertisers.
WWE is set to hold its Crown Jewel event Friday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That’s a nondescript way to describe a spectacle — headlined by major stars including The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar — that WWE would usually blitz fans with bombastic hype to promote. Bigger! Badder! And usually with an event logo connecting the […]
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A federal judge in Connecticut has dismissed a lawsuit by 60 former professional wrestlers, many of them stars in the 1980s and 1990s, who claimed World Wrestling Entertainment failed to protect them from repeated head trauma including concussions that led to long-term brain damage. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant in Hartford […]
