Good news for the AEW and their TV rights WWE backs Vince McMahon in the Janel Grant lawsuit
CM Punk’s backstage attitude and more I’m Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk News.
As AEW approach their fifth anniversary with Double or Nothing at the end of the month,
there has been a lot of chatter online about their profitability, and the chances of them getting a
new TV rights deal from Warner Bros Discovery, who have been their TV partners since October 2019.
WWE have all their TV rights deals wrapped up; SmackDown will be moving from Fox to USA Network,
while NXT will move off USA Network to The CW, and Raw will be moving off cable entirely as
it embarks on a new sea with Netflix. It was also announced recently that WWE will remain
on USA Network for the final few months of 2024 before it moves to Netflix in January
of 2025. And these TV rights have come with big revenue increases. WWE’s ticket sales
and merch and all that may be up, but the biggest driver of revenue will always be these TV deals.
And that has been part of the AEW discussion. Ticket sales are not as strong for All Elite
Wrestling as they were a couple of years ago. Interest in the product doesn’t appear to be as
high as it was a couple of years ago. But maybe none of that will matter if they get another five
year deal with a big money increase. So, I think it's fair to say, a lot rides on this TV deal.
And Warner Bros Discovery has been in the media conversation a lot recently, as it looks like
they’re set to lose their NBA coverage, which presents two world views: less money from
advertisers and therefore less to spend on other projects, or more money saved and a bigger need
to invest in a reliable TV show that constantly brings you ratings that put your channel in the
top 5 for cable every Wednesday. Losing the NBA would also free up Thursdays, which Sean
Ross Sapp on Fightful’s Raw Post Show noted would be a desired day for AEW to move Collision to.
With the WBD Upfronts taking place today, many expected this is where we would get
the announcement of a new AEW TV deal, but Mike Johnson of PWInsider is reporting that while AEW
will be mentioned as part of the upfronts, “we do not believe that the two sides have locked
in a new media rights deal and do not expect there will be any sort of announcement in that regard.”
Not believing that the two sides have reached a deal doesn’t sound like good news,
however Fightful Select have added to this report saying, “We're told that the
announcement of a new deal is expected to be kept very close to the vest and Summer or Fall
could be a more likely announcement point.” Which makes it sound like there is a deal in
place, they’re just not ready to announce it yet. But if there’s no new deal to announce, why would
AEW be mentioned in the WBD upfronts at all? Well, according to Fightful Select,
“there is a pilot for a new AEW-related program with WBD that was set to be
announced for social channels this week.” Fightful Select note that this won’t be a
reality TV show, and rumours circling online suggest this could be a new
show hosted by RJ City and Renee Paquette. There could be another reason that WBD aren’t
announcing this new AEW deal, and it all comes back to the streaming wars. And we’ll have more on
that in a bit, but first we want to show you the trailer for our latest WrestleTalk Original, which
looks at Roman Reigns’ Universal Championship reign from start to finish in what is one
of the longest videos we’ve ever made. Please do subscribe and enable notifications
to know when this goes live, and get a brew ready because it clocks in at
just under 2 hours. And everyone give Pete some cheap pops in the comments down below
because he and the rest of the WrestleTalk team have worked really hard on this video.
Back to those AEW TV talks. One of the reasons a new AEW deal
might not have been announced is because Warner Bros Discovery want to put more focus on their
MAX streaming platform, and Fightful Select report that WBD have had interest in putting AEW’s PPVs
on MAX for some time now - with proposals from WBD to AEW going back as far back as last year.
They add that when AEW first signed with Warner in 2019, MAX was not a focus for WBD,
but now it is and, “almost every deal that WBD does is with MAX in mind.”
And it was recently announced that Warner Bros Discovery would be teaming with Disney
to merge together Disney+, Hulu and MAX into one big streaming platform,
that presumably they might call ‘Cable, ’ So perhaps one of the reasons WBD have
been keeping this AEW deal close to the vest, as Fightful Select put it, was because there is to be
a big MAX integration, but they need to figure out what MAX looks like in a post-Disney partnership.
Gearshifting now to the on-going Vince McMahon lawsuit filed by Janel Grant,
which accused McMahon, John Laurinitus and WWE of sex trafficking, sexual abuse, and more.
There has been a lot of back and forth since the case was made public back in January,
with Laurintinus’ lawyers saying he was also a victim of McMahon,
before siding with him again to fight against the lawsuit together. McMahon has reportedly
hired the same PR firm that had Harvey Weinstein as a client to help him rehabilitate his image,
with Dave Meltzer noting on Wrestling Observer Radio that McMahon wants to get back into the
business world, but perhaps not specifically the wrestling business world. In another new filing,
McMahon’s lawyers claimed text messages from Grant to Vince show that the relationship - and violent
sexual nature of it - was consensual, but provide no screenshots and claim that McMahon deleted all
the messages once the relationship ended. His team also filed a motion to move the
Grant case out of the public court and into private arbitration.
Since the case was made public, WWE have distanced themselves from McMahon. He
was removed from the WWE2K24 game as a playable character - even blurred out in cutscenes - and
the company have made concerted efforts to put over that this is a new era of WWE.
But they are also named in the suit, with Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon revealed
to be two of the unnamed executives that Grant alleges knew of McMahon’s actions.
And now in a new filing, WWE have shown support in McMahon’s motion to move the case to arbitration.
The filing writes that “WWE disputes Grant’s allegations” and argues that
the NDA she signed when her alleged affair with McMahon was broken off had a proviso
that precludes Grant from taking this to court. Grant and her legal team had already dismissed
this in their initial claim, citing the Speak Out Act and the Victims of Trafficking and Violence
Protecting Act of 2000, which argue the NDA - and its proviso - are unenforceable. WWE argue
neither apply to their request for arbitration. If you have been affected by anything we’ve
spoken about today, please do visit WrestleTalk.com/supporteachother for
links for people to reach out to. We gearshit again to talk about the
return of CM Punk, and a new report from the Wrestling Observer is claiming that Punk will
make his in-ring return to WWE “fairly soon”. Punk made his return to WWE back in November,
after being fired from AEW in the summer following the Brawl In incident at their
All In Wembley stadium show. He had a couple of matches in December - beating
Dominik Mysterio on two house shows - and then got injured during the 2024 Men’s Royal Rumble.
He has continued his feud with Drew McIntyre, who is also out of action with an injury, and
the current rumour is that Punk will be back in time for Summerslam to do the Drew match. And that
could be on the cards. The Wrestling Observer notes that if Punk had surgery at the end of
January - which is what was reported - then he’ll be ready for wrestling again at the end of July or
early August - just in time for Summerslam. Punk left All Elite Wrestling with a lot of
negativity and backstage scuttlebutt. From calling out Hangman Page on an episode of Dynamite when
Page wasn’t in the building, to the public bashing of the company at the All Out press conference,
to the backstage fight with The Elite, banning people from being backstage at Collision,
and the ‘real glass’ argument and scuffle with Jack Perry that led to his firing.
He also spent the better part of a decade going scorched earth on WWE, blasting the company for
firing him on his wedding day in 2014, and their relationship with Saudi Arabia - once telling The
Miz to go and suck a blood money covered duck. But from all reports since his return,
this is a different CM Punk to 2014, and a different CM Punk to the one in AEW.
Shane Helms, a producer for WWE, recently told Behind the Turnbuckle that, in the last
six months, he’s been a pleasure to work with. He said, “In terms of the feeling backstage, he's
been a pleasure ever since he's been back, and I never had any problems with him to begin with,
so I'm not surprised he's been a pleasure with me but I haven't heard of anything bad either.”
This backs up a reports from the likes of Fightful Select who have noted that Punk has
had no issues in WWE since his return, and has been very helpful backstage when visiting NXT.
Speaking of NXT, and last night saw a title change!
Tony D’Angelo took on Charlie Dempsey for the Heritage Cup, and although the scores were tied
for quite some time, it all came down to the final moments of the fifth round - and despite
interference from returning No Quarter Catch members Damon Kemp and Myles Borne,
D’Angelo scored the final pinfall to win the cup. This is D’Angelo’s third championship reign in
NXT, having previously held the NXT Tag Team Championships twice. Both he and
Stacks were rumoured to be called up to the main roster during the 2024 Draft,
but those plans were evidently changed. That wasn’t the only bit of news from
D’Angelo and NXT, as his match with Dempsey nearly didn’t go ahead.
NXT General Manager Ava announced earlier in the show that D’Angelo would be fined $20,000 for the
scene that was caused at the end of last week’s show. A fine that he paid quite easily. In cash.
With all this talk of CM Punk, why not check out how we’d all book him in the
2025 Royal Rumble as we try and predict every entrant in that match way too far in advance.