On the sixth day of 2023, the wrestling industry had already had three biggest story of the
year contenders: Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega having one of the best matches of all time,
Sasha Banks leaving WWE for New Japan, and Vince McMahon, just five months after being
forced to retire by his own company due to mounting allegations of sexual misconduct,
forcing his way back into WWE.
On the tenth day, our beloved sport of professional wrestling experienced arguably the biggest
news story in its history…
Jinder Mahal just showed up in NXT!
On developmental’s New Year’s Evil special, former WWE champion Jinder jumped the Creed
Brothers from behind to support Sanga, with Veer Mahaan out to presumably be coming.
Mahal even got a ‘Jinder’ chant from the crowd.
With that, and Charlotte Flair’s random return to immediately win the SmackDown championship
on the 31st December, we probably should’ve figured it out.
Vince really has wrestled complete control back.
Because his own daughter has stepped down from her temporary CEO role, he was voted
back unanimously as chairman - in the sort of ‘unanimously’ you get in dictator-led
elections - and, most shockingly, seems set to sell WWE to the Saudi Arabian Investment
Fund, in a deal that might’ve already been agreed months ago.
I’m Oli Davis, and welcome to the Triple H’s WWE commemorative collector’s edition.
It was a hell of a five months, Trips.
A hell of a five months…
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The story began with the resignation of Stephanie McMahon from her role as co-CEO of WWE, along
with Nick Khan.
Giving the British Prime Minister job a run for its money, this is the second time Stephanie
has resigned from WWE in seven months, having previously tried to leave in May 2022 to focus
on her family.
She was brought back just a month later, after WWE had reportedly buried her for leaving
in a business magazine, to be the interim Chairwoman and CEO in the wake of sexual misconduct
allegations against her father first emerging.
Because what says ‘we don’t sexually exploit our own employees’ better than having a
female CEO?
She was made Chairwoman and co-CEO with Khan the following month when said allegations
forced Vince to completely retire from the company.
It was always an odd move, as Nick Khan should’ve really been the sole Chief Executive - but
there were political, PR and Machivelian reasons to keep Stephanie in a high profile position:
chiefly, to act as a business reputation shield for Nick Khan, to act as a progressive diversity
shield for the company, and, maybe, to act as Vince’s eyes and ears during his exile,
the only blood relative left in WWE.
Stephanie tweeted a statement announcing her most recent departure, calling the last 8
months “the opportunity of a lifetime” and a “privilege” to work alongside her
Co-CEO Nick Khan.
Interestingly, she never really gets behind her returning father, and when she does, it’s
explicitly to remind him of how Nick Khan and Triple H should be running the company:
“Our Founder, Vince McMahon, has returned as Executive Chair and is leading an exciting
process regarding strategic alternatives.
And with Nick’s leadership and Paul “Triple H” Levesque as Chief Content Officer, I
am confident WWE is in the perfect place to continue to provide unparalleled creative
content and drive maximum value for shareholders.”
She signs off, “Then.
Now.
Forever.
Together.”
Which is increasingly feeling like the Mafia code of silence.
Fightful Select has reported that several WWE wrestlers have expressed their “uncertainty”
about Stephanie’s resignation, which is presumably just their measured way of saying
‘OH NO, OH GOD, OH NO, OH GOD’, and they have their doubts over what it “actually
means” for who will really be running the company going forward.
That’s because it comes just four days after Stephanie led a backstage meeting with employees,
where she reassured everyone Vince’s return was purely to pursue the sale of WWE, and
won’t actually affect the day-to-day management team.
But revealing not all was well back then, it’s also come out that Stephanie told everyone
at that meeting “there’s naturally some animosity” when talking about her father’s
return, before correcting herself to “angst”.
To psychologists and my mother, that is what’s known as a Freudian Blowjob.
I mean, Slip!
Mummy?
Bryan Alvarez corroborated the backstage dip in morale, tweeting:
“Also can't say this has been great for morale today.
A lot of people really liked Steph.”
Stephanie, of course, famously invented women’s wrestling in 2016.
Stephanie’s resignation came during the same strategic offence that saw Vince McMahon
unanimously elected as Executive Chairman of the Board, a formality following his letter
of intent the previous week.
Unlike Vince’s first public statement, which was issued on behalf of an external PR company,
this one was from WWE itself, truly acknowledging how the two entities have once again combined.
Nick Khan was also announced as the sole CEO with Stephanie stepping down.
Despite Stephanie’s removal, Sean Ross Sapp reports that Triple H is still WWE’s Chief
Content Officer, meaning he controls creative.
For now.
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Vince’s regaining the most powerful position in WWE came in the corporate equivalent of
the red wedding.
When he first went public with his plan, he installed himself, George Barrios and Michelle
Wilson on the board of directors - filling WWE’s governing body with his allies, and
removing those he likely saw as enemies for forcing him out in the first place, and potentially
even leaking the original investigation story to the Wall Street Journal in June.
WrestleNomics have tweeted that since the Fall, six of the eleven board members have
either left or been replaced - with Jeffrey Speed, Ignace Lahoud, Alan Wexler, JoEllen
Lyons Dillon, Man Jit Singh and Stephanie McMahon no longer being directors.
These are highly compensated positions.
To have so many leave in such a short span of time implies people are being forced out,
or they can no longer support the governance of the company and no longer want their names
associated with it.
Man Jit Singh is an especially interesting name, as he was the leading investigator on
the Vince McMahon investigation internally.
That leaves WWE’s current board with a majority of Vince McMahon Yes Men - Nick Khan, Triple
H, Michelle Wilson, George Barrios and Vince McMahon himself.
Having a board you majority control is an absolute win for sociopathic control freaks.
But you know what’s even better?
Having no board whatsoever so you can do what you want in secret.
Cue the Saudi Arabian Investment Fund.
Immediately following the Stephanie resignation and Vince reinstation, unconfirmed rumours
began to circulate that the Saudi Arabian investment fund was going to buy WWE, and
it was pretty much already completed.
It began with the suspected WWE insider on Reddit Kermit125 posting:
UPDATE EYES EMOJI WWE has been sold Then Cassidy Haynes of BodySlam, who previously
broke the Bryan Danielson to AEW news, tweeted: “For what it’s worth, I’m told the Saudi
deal is done and they’re taking the company private.”
Steven Muehlhausen of DAZN corroborated this, posting:
“Sources: #WWE has been sold to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The company will go back to being private.
Unknown if Vince McMahon will return to head of creative but it is expected by some people.”
And Sean Ross Sapp noted that the betting site Bovada, who had only just sent Fightful
the betting odds on who would buy WWE, had suddenly stopped taking bets.
It seemed the darkest timeline was truly upon us.
Not only was Vince McMahon back in full control of WWE, he was going to take the company private
using one of the most morally dubious funding sources available.
Just to explain what taking a company private means - since 1999 WWE has been a publicly
traded company.
That means while Vince might own most of the company, loads of other people and parties
also own it.
That could be from a big investment fund like Blackrock, to someone like me and you.
It allows you to supercharge your growth my having access to an influx of other people’s
money.
But with great money, in theory, comes great responsibility.
As soon as you become a publicly traded company, because you are dealing with other people’s
investments, you have to be far more transparent with how you conduct your business, and the
government body the SEC is there to make sure you do.
In theory, WWE serves the shareholders, not Vince.
The board of a company is the small group of people who are meant to make sure the company
is obeying the rules.
They hold the executives that run it to account.
In theory.
It was the board that investigated Vince McMahon for sexual misconduct allegations, for instance,
not WWE’s HR department.
If WWE is to go private again, all those pesky laws like transparency and investor calls
and having a board of directors go away.
And with a backer as rich as Saudi Arabia, the amount of money available could easily
eclipse what you could generate through stock sales.
I said when Vince McMahon forced his way back onto the board on Friday 6th that it was an
ingenious ploy.
Vince’s name is actually bad for shareholders, where the December hint at his return corresponded
with a drop in stock price, but a sale of the company is very good.
By making Vince and a sale so intrinsically linked, as in he wouldn’t let that happen
without him, Wall Street welcomed him back with a stock market bump with a three year
high.
And then, once Vince is in, he doesn’t need to actually sell.
He could change his mind.
It’s all just a Trojan Horse to get McMahon running the company again.
I never once considered he could be using it to secure himself even more control by
removing the board and the shareholder interests completely.
As the Saudi deal seems so far along already, this feels like a masterplan Vince has been
working on for months.
Like everything in WWE corporate, this is right out of an episode of Succession, specifically
Season 2 Episode 9 when the Roy family try to take their company private using morally
compromised money from an unnamed dictator-led state.
But as WWE know better than anyone, the Saudi Prince is a volatile business partner.
There’s no guarantee that the Saudi Investment Fund would keep Vince around for long.
And the risks for WWE’s future are significant.
Of course, there is the talent themselves.
Wrestling Observer Radio has reported “everybody was scared” at the NXT taping and there
is “uncertainty throughout the company.”
Fightful Select adds there is “an incredible amount of concern” over Vince’s return,
and that if the deal goes through, “at least one” wrestler said they’d be done with
the company.
It’s not known who that is, but MVP, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn have all refused to appear
on Saudi WWE events in the past due to moral objections.
Despite being a major part of the Bloodline story, Wrestling Observer Radio reported he
wouldn’t appear at November 2022’s Crown Jewel event there because “he is Syrian
and that was an issue on both sides, both his and Saudi Arabia.
Kevin Owens also hasn’t gone in the past for a number of reasons, one of which is loyalty
to Zayn.”
There is also the potential of putting of talent who WWE want to bring in.
AEW’s MJF, who is currently in a year long storyline about potentially leaving for WWE,
is proudly Jewish - and would presumably decline working for a country that is often criticised
for its antisemitism.
And if CM Punk was ever available, he’s an opinionated fellow who once told The Miz
to “Go suck a blood money covered d**k in Saudi Arabia you f**king dork.”
As important as the onscreen talent is to us, though, that won’t make a difference
to the potential billions that could be made from the sale.
The only chance against it is the potential billions WWE could lose if it goes through.
The Saudi backed LIV Golf tour has struggled so much to get TV rights deals, they are reportedly
paying Fox Sports to broadcast its tournaments, and in the UK they might give away the rights
for free.
Of course, LIV Golf is new and doesn’t have the IP history of WWE.
But would TV Networks pay as much for a company owned by the Saudis, out of fear of critical
blowback?
We’ll just have to hang on to the chance that the deal isn’t actually done.
WWE only just hired JPMorgan to assist with a sale, and deals this complex and large typically
take 3-6 months to complete.
Cassidy Haynes has updated: “The deal isn’t completely finalized because
WWE must provide notice to shareholders & other parties.
There are legalities to go through, as the company is publicly traded.
But, again, I’m told a deal has been agreed to in principle.”
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