TKO Terrific Banking Big ESPN Deal While WWE Creatively Challenged

In a landmark move for professional wrestling, WWE, under the umbrella of TKO Group Holdings, has secured a five-year, $1.625 billion media rights agreement with ESPN, positioning the sports entertainment giant’s Premium Live Events (PLEs) on ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming platform starting in 2026. This deal, valued at an average of $325 million annually, marks a significant shift from WWE’s current streaming partnership with NBCUniversal’s Peacock, which expires in March 2026 and was valued at $180-$200 million per year. 
The agreement, which includes marquee events like WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and Money in the Bank, will see all 10 annual PLEs stream exclusively on ESPN’s DTC service in the U.S., with select events simulcast on ESPN’s linear networks. This transition not only elevates WWE’s domestic reach but also underscores TKO’s strategic prowess in securing high-value media deals with the “worldwide leader in sports,” amplifying WWE’s mainstream legitimacy and global expansion.
A key advantage for fans is the deal’s accessibility for cable and satellite subscribers who already receive ESPN as part of their TV package. These subscribers will likely be able to authenticate their existing subscriptions to access the ESPN DTC platform at no additional cost, mitigating the impact of the platform’s $29.99 monthly price tag—a steep increase from Peacock’s $10.99-$16.99 plans. 
This authentication model ensures that millions of households (ESPN is available in approximately 72 million homes compared to Peacock’s 36 million subscribers) can seamlessly transition to watching WWE’s biggest events without incurring extra fees, potentially broadening the audience reach. However, fans without cable subscriptions face a significant cost hike, sparking debate on social media about affordability, especially for those solely interested in wrestling content.
TKO’s orchestration of this billion-dollar deal with ESPN highlights its formidable deal-making ability and strategic vision for WWE’s global growth. Led by executives like TKO President and COO Mark Shapiro, a former ESPN executive, and WWE President Nick Khan, the company has leveraged WWE’s passionate fanbase and proven subscriber loyalty to secure a 78% increase in value over the Peacock deal. This partnership aligns WWE with ESPN’s prestigious brand, reinforcing the “E” in ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) and positioning WWE alongside other major sports properties like UFC, which has thrived under ESPN’s umbrella. The deal enhances WWE’s mainstream credibility, tapping into ESPN’s marketing and distribution power to attract casual sports fans and expand its audience on a national scale. 
Combined with WWE’s existing $5 billion, 10-year Netflix deal for Monday Night Raw and international PLEs, and other agreements with The CW (NXT) and NBCUniversal (SmackDown), TKO has crafted a robust media portfolio that cements WWE’s place in the mainstream entertainment landscape. The deal’s timing, coinciding with the launch of ESPN’s DTC platform on August 21, 2025, further amplifies its strategic significance, as WWE’s high-profile events are expected to drive subscriptions and bolster ESPN’s streaming ambitions.
However, while TKO’s business acumen shines, the deal does not address ongoing concerns about WWE’s creative and in-ring operations. Under Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE’s storytelling has faced criticism for lacking urgency and failing to develop complex, compelling narratives. Fans and analysts have pointed to mishandled storylines, such as the Roman Reigns–The Rock WrestleMania buildup, The Rock’s recent arc, and John Cena’s heel turn, as evidence of creative missteps. 
At a time when fans will pay up to three times more for PLEs on ESPN’s platform, expectations for high-quality booking and innovative character development are heightened. The absence of clarity on the future of WWE’s extensive archival content—currently a cornerstone of Peacock’s offering—further fuels uncertainty, as neither ESPN nor WWE has confirmed whether the vast library of past matches and shows will be included in the DTC deal. This lack of transparency, coupled with a nearly 3% dip in TKO’s stock price post-announcement, suggests investor and fan skepticism about whether WWE’s creative team can deliver a product worthy of the premium price and platform.
In summary, WWE’s $1.625 billion deal with ESPN marks a pivotal moment for sports entertainment, showcasing TKO’s ability to secure lucrative partnerships that enhance WWE’s global reach and mainstream appeal. The deal’s benefits for cable subscribers and its alignment with ESPN’s streaming goals position WWE for significant growth, but the creative team’s ability to address fan dissatisfaction and deliver captivating storylines will be critical to justifying the increased cost and maintaining audience loyalt

Episode Transcript

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TKO makes a short trip to Bristol, Connecticut to bag
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Speaker 1 (00:44):
Welcome to episode nine hundred and fifty of the wrestlers
were podcasts. As a King of podcast You're with you
with another great episode here on the program. ESPN is
now a new broadcast partner in the world of w
thanks to TKO coming up in twenty twenty. So the
streaming deal that w has had with Peacock for the

(01:05):
last five years after the removal of the network, ESPN
now takes over the premium live events. Going forward, Netflix
will not be taking those over, so it's all it's
doing right now is the Peacock deal for premium live
events will be replaced by ESPN now SmackDown. We'll still

(01:33):
be running on Peacock as part of the NBC Universal
deal to have Friday Nights backdown. So you will say
network streaming on Peacock will remain and that's for the
foreseeable future, So Peacock will still have that, but the
premium live events will no longer be on Peacock. And
why is this all this deal? You ask, Well, there

(01:53):
is the reasons why ESPN decides to go and do
this on the broadcasters podcast that I hope here at
Kingofpodcasts dot com. I will talk more about this an
extensive detail tomorrow because there's a number of streaming deals
that are going out. Fox has now Fox One. At

(02:13):
the same time, we have ESPN now with a new
direct to consumers service. So to keep it as simple
as possible, ESPN has been working on a new app
that replaces ESPN plus, ESPN three and all these other
things they have in the area. They're proprietary ESPN app
because they now want to make it where if you
want to watch ESPN and either channels, you don't have

(02:35):
to watch on cable. You can stream all their channels.
So that's ESPN U, ESPN Classic, ESPN News two and
all the other rues that are at ESPN. Plus everything
now is under one roof and you'll have the sc
for the time being. And now paper vs are now

(02:56):
available on ESPN. And the most important thing is that
there is a two tier system on ESPN with this
direct consumer service. This is for those that don't want
to have cable, right you don't want to go back
to a cable subscription because you got to go and
bundle all the other channels you gotta get if you
just want ESPN and all the ESPN comes with it,
which is a lot of sports, a lot could cover

(03:16):
almost everything in sports that you want, college or professional.
But what they are doing is for twenty nine ninety
nine a month, you're gonna be able to go and
catch all their programming in one place. On August of
twenty first, the app will launch. And the best part
that people were not reporting about enough is that if

(03:40):
you have a cable subscription and ESPN is part of
the package that you have in your cable subscription, and
this also includes YouTube, Fubo, YouTube TV, Hulu with live TV,
all those are the platforms that you would have to
subscribe to ESPN as a package. You will have access
to the full package of the EAP app ESPN plus coverage,

(04:04):
the pay per views for w ALL that's included. There's
not a premium to the price. It's cake is bed
is caked in, baked into the price. That's it. That's
a great deal if you still have cable, it is
a great deal. Now that's the part that doesn't work
for some people because if you're you've already cut the

(04:26):
cord and you wanted to go ahead and continue to
watch anything on CSPN or anything, that's these paper views
for w Yeah, you were hoping that you could just
scream me for a cheap price. Well you still can
if you have cable. So some of us that did
not cut cable, we're gonna luck out on this because
with the cable packages, you know what they've been doing

(04:48):
the last couple of years is that since streaming has
been kind of taking away from them, the cable company's
been making deals with the streamers. So some of them
are making deals like right now, I already have Pairamount
plus with Showtime as part of my att Uverse package.
I mean, yeah, you're paying two hundred bucks a month

(05:08):
for the Uverse. That I'm paying right now for the
Uverse package, but at least I get in the package
starts in Showtime, and in that Showtime package that we're
already paying for, paramount plus comes with it. And then
if we wanted to watch other channels within Espn, we
could see the cable channels because we have the coverage
of the bundle. But then what happens now is we

(05:28):
get this new app from ESPN, which is a big deal.
And this is a bigger story more than just what
W means to this ESPN deal. We're gonna go through
the details of what it is that actually happens, but
the thing is you want to make sure it's important too,
is that W and TKO they just landed in the

(05:49):
middle of the right time to make the deal for themselves.
Because ESPN was trying to shore up all the properties
available that they could get to make the ESPN Direct
Consumer app viable. They wanted to make sure you got
the most value for thirty dollars a month. And when

(06:10):
they realize, oh, if you add these pay reviews that
people have been paying for at first, what nine ninety
nine at first, and they got up to what I
think was twelve ninety nine. I think I forget what
the network was, but I had it the whole time
and I loved it. Now. The other thing too, is
that ESPN is gonna have a new app, and hopefully
it's better than the streaming that they've had before, because

(06:32):
the last app they had right now currently has been clunky.
It's never been really effective. You can't do a picture
and picture and you know, it's just not been that
very functional. It was just kind of like built upon
wasn't one of the best streamers in the world. And
sometimes you get a buffering issues. Sometimes you just have
issues just on to log in to the ESPN plus coverage.

(06:52):
It was a lot of things. Right now, you're gonna
have the one log in, get in there, and you're
good to go. So, like I think, depending on how
they at works like, you can't be making a mistake
on this for the kind of money they're spending on it.
Hopefully the technology works out good and all the bugs
you can get worked over really quickly. But they're going
to have a good five months to get that figured

(07:12):
out before the pay reviews go over to ESPN at
the start of twenty twenty six, So we got time
for that four months actually, but all the bugs can
get worked out by them. But ESPN also at the
same time worked on other deals that were very crucial
to them as well. Sports Media Watch actually makes all

(07:34):
the announcements about it, So the surprise deal with w
and all the marquee events, so that's WrestleMania, all the
major pay per views, all of them are moving over
to ESPN. They're also going to get the NFL Drafts extension.
They're also picking up the NFL Plus bundle, which means
they have acquired from the NFL in return for a

(07:56):
ten percent equity stake to the NFL now has a
ten percent share of the value of ESPN, like they're
in bed with ESPN now. And with this, the NFL
Plus package that was already out there for like preseason
games and extra coverage is now available on ESPN on

(08:16):
this app. The NFL Draft will have an extension now.
They're going to get Tea to keep carrying the NFL
Draft for the next like think five years or whatever
it is. And that's all happening and then it's all
going to be part of this new ESPN app available
August twenty first. But like I said, you can either
pay outright the thirty bucks to watch ESPN on this

(08:41):
service but all the channels that go with it, or
you get cabled again and then you can attach yourself
and actually log in through your cable provider. You can
access ESPN's new app. That's everything all in one now
in the deal we have here, there's a couple of
details that come from this and bring the thirst over
at Wrestle Nomics puts a pretty good story out here

(09:02):
about this, but there's more to it now. I want
to just take it really quickly. Before I go to
Wrestle Nomics about what they're explaining here, let's just go
into what the big industry broadcasting rags are saying about this.
So far so variety. I'm going to take from first,
and under a new five year deal, ESPN's streaming outlet

(09:23):
will become the exclusive home in the United States. By
the way, because remember all the pay per views now
are available on Netflix. And for some people that are
already starting to talk about this badly, they don't understand
what's going on here. They want to say, oh, well,
you know, you can just go ahead and watch Netflix
on a VPN. Yeah, you don't want to want to
go through that route, go right ahead, But I got
a problem with the fact that I already had cable

(09:44):
in the first place, and there are still advantages to
cable in the first place as well. People don't realize that,
but it's true. Now with this WrestleMania Summer Sam Royal
Rumbo Survices series, those top events and all the other
ones will continue to be produced. W will continue to
produce those events, and ESPN will have the option to

(10:06):
stream pre and post shows tithe the events, which are
ten right now in total, and the events may be
simulcast on certain linear ESPN venues, so it could go
on ESPN Television. We don't know if they're gonna do
that yet, but at the moment, this app is going
to take care of that. But like I said, people
are really caught up on the thirty dollars price because

(10:27):
you cut the cord. Oh you know, I mean I
understand that part that cost is going to be there
because I think that thirty dollars tier. There's a select
eleven ninety nine plan, but that doesn't include this. They
do have a deal now where if you want the
Disney Hulu bundle, they will if you buy for twenty
nine nine and nine a month, you'll get the Disney

(10:48):
Hulu bundle in total for one full year. If you
buy it at twenty nine nine and a month for
one year only and then it changes, the price will
probably change after that point, but that's what the plan
is going to be. Jimmy Petarro, the chairman of ESPN,
who's been a long time broadcaster there was gone for
a while, came back to help get the network back

(11:09):
on good funding because it was kind of struggling a
little bit. Jimmy Petaro says that we is going to
help us get younger, It's going to help us get
more diverse and bring in more females. So Pataro expects
both Disney and ESPN to create other kinds of programming
tie to w which conclude alliances with NB stars The

(11:30):
Rock who's a partner with the ESPN in the UFL,
and Pat McAfee, who hosts the afternoon show on ESPN.
His radio show is simulcast or his podcast excuse me.
So now ESPN is relying on a similar concept where

(11:52):
ahead of the next NFL season, are trying to get
this all set up, so they one of the wind
new consumers to the ESPN Plus broadband outlet, tapping W
just like they've done with UFC, which is part of TKO.
And because of what UFC has done by being with
ESPN before TKO, if you've got part of this, that

(12:15):
they have been able to find a new and expanding audience.
According to Mark Shapiro, the president and COO TICO, and
Nick Con says about this. By the way, you also
have some comments for Nick Con that he was talking
to the Varsity Podcast, and you know there was a
lot of people from the W that actually were out
making the rounds on TV today. I know Roman Raine
was on First Take, Triple H was on Sports Center.

(12:38):
I forget whether the show he was on, but they
were all on that. And then Nick Con went on
the Varsity Podcast with John Iron. Now to make everything
clear in the United States right now, the portfolio for
all the broadcast partners they have, this is TKO at
its best. This is what TKO is made to do.

(13:00):
Regardless of the fact that they're picking up companies that
might be holding debt UFC with three billion dollars, that's fine,
but what they're doing is they're also acquiring other things.
They remember they acquired the Professional bull Riders Tour on Location,
which is the concierge package for like all these major
events like the Super Bowl or w events you've been

(13:21):
seeing right now, and IMG, which is an acquisition of
a big sports media agency that also helps what they're doing.
So now with Netflix and ESPN, you have the situation
events with them right now. There was no discussion of
the financial terms of the new deal and all that's

(13:41):
going to come together. But with that said, from ESPN itself,
they're saying now and I'm going to go to wrestonomics
for this that is going to be being paid by
ESPN to the tune of three hundred and twenty five

(14:02):
million dollars per year. CNBC and Wall Street Journal are
reporting that. So from Peacock and NBC Universal they were
getting two hundred million dollars, so one and a half
times the amount they were making before, because sixty percent
increase from what they were making. So your normal cable

(14:23):
providers will give you access. You will be able to
get and log in with access from your cable provider
to get to ESPN and this new service that includes
cable companies like Charter or Spectrum Direct TV Foobo TV,
Hulo Live TV and Versa, Verizon Files and just to
make sure we got our doll cleared out here, awful

(14:45):
Announcing dot com explains all this. As we know, Peacock
has already been going up in price anyway. The lowest
tier plan was ten ninety nine at last check and
sixteen ninety nine for the ad free plan. So according
to a source with knowledge of the Awful Announcing that's talking about,
is that in addition to ESPN Direct to Consumer Limited subscribers,

(15:07):
customers who scribscribed to ESPN via Direct TV, Hulu Live, Charter,
Fotball TV, and Verias and files will have access to
the streaming service. And that however, leased at least two
notable exceptions, with the source confirming that YouTube TV and
Xtinity subscribers won't have access via the authentication process at
this time. As far as I know, I went and
did a search and I saw that attu vers was

(15:30):
going to be included. So that's great for me. That's
what I was looking for and also for those that
wanted to know. Nick Con also said the premium live
events will be available on the we streaming service and
no additional pay per view cost, So if you're a
YouTube TV customer or don't subscribe to ESPN via one
of the other services, then you have to pay the
full price twenty nine to nine per month to access

(15:52):
the streaming service, and those pay per views because it's
on the premium tier, you can get it. But now
what's going to happen is by the end of time
twenty twenty six or the end of twenty twenty five,
Peacock subscriptions are gonna drop. And I don't know what
they're gonna do to go ahead and fill the void,
but they're gonna probably lose some subscribers from that if
they already didn't do that because of what happened with Netflix,

(16:14):
but the five year agreement and still if you got
lucky that you still kept the cable plan, then you're
gonna be alright with it. That's what it's gonna come
down to. So there's more into the details of what
the deal's gonna be. Brandon Ross actually writes about this,
and this is from an analyst from Lightshed Partners, Brandon Ross. Now,

(16:36):
ESPN's deal does not include library rights, it does not
include NXT premium live events, and Peacock actually obligated that
w had to go ahead and produce two hundred and
fifty hours of ancillary original programming and year five documentaries
a year, So the extra production they had to do

(16:59):
for that goes away. They were doing more work, but
now they're going to get more money for less content,
so that's not a bad thing. Now, there's a couple
couple of things that the Varsity Podcasts asked Nick Kahn.
Nick Contail's confident that subscribers are going to continue to

(17:21):
go ahead and fall along to what the plan is
for WW to go to ESPN from Peacock. He says, quote, well,
the subs follow the product to wherever the new platform is.
I think we've demonstrated the Peacock our subs will follow.
They certainly all fall from the w W network and
not expanded their subscribership extensively with Peacock. And there's obviously

(17:43):
other product that peacocks will watch with our fans who
subscribe primarily for us, we're able to sample say will
be the case with ESPN. But it's always what w
wanted to go and do was get themselves aligned to
a sports product, to a sports media outlet, and now
they are, so now they can be aligned with sports

(18:04):
and aligned with ESPN like they've wanted to do for more.
So the thing is is that Nick con the folks
of TKO, they took advantage of a good situation because
there's a certain trend right now with the big corporate
media companies like an ESPN where they can't rely on
the back and forth of where they tried to provide

(18:27):
a streaming service something that was going to be reasonably
budgeted and thinking that people were gonna still kind of
hold on the cable or they might not, or they
could just give a certain limited amount of programming and
that was gonna be enough for people to go in
and say, all right, we're gonna go and buy this
for like ten twelve bucks a month, and they could
bundle up with something else. Well that obviously didn't work.
So instead ESPN is trying to go ahead and take

(18:49):
over everything because, like I said, the NFL stuff is
a big deal for them now because there's a lot
more that, as Nick kind of saying, there's a lot
more choices for sports fans in general that might align
themselves more to w that would actually be watching more

(19:10):
stuff than besides what we on Peacock ause I mean,
for me, I didn't think Peacock offered that much besides
what W was giving me. That was the whole thing
of it too, Like, you know, whatever NBC is running
or sci Fi or USC network didn't really align with
anything else I would be watching on W anyway. I mean,
it's already kind of tough for the USC network, as

(19:32):
it always was to put on programming that would compliment
what the fans of W will be watching. Right we
always talk about the fact that, okay, they put on
Chicago PD or NCIS or you know, Law and Order SVU,
things like that. They would always have to put some
shows that you would know would be on right before RAW.

(19:52):
But it's like, was it really kind of like a
good match? Meanwhile, if you're watching on a ESPN, I mean,
think about it. If you're going into the middle of
the college football season, you have whatever pay per view
you're watching, and then you go and flip over to
college football or NFL football or whatever else. The only
thing I haven't realized about yet is what will happen

(20:14):
to the pay per views themselves, because I think that's
the other thing we've got to think about too. I Mean,
I know that TKO has always been talking about where
they want to have the USC pay per views be
one particular night. And then I mean the other thing too,
is that you have the two night events with ESPN
now carrying those along with everything else, there's a lot

(20:39):
of options and choices for those on the for ESPN
subscribers to go ahead and get to if they want
to go and catch any of the programming, will they
want to flip over to some that WV is doing
right there, like a pay per view probably, you know what.
I think that's the other part that people gotta realize
is that this move the ESPN. ESPN's already been very
chummy with wvsp sho's going back to the pandemic because

(21:01):
when ESPN was running short on programming, the solid by
offering WrestleMania pay per views for ESPN to go and
run when they'd had no live sports to cover because
of the COVID. And you know, there's always been some
kind of attachment that all like of course, Joe Tess
the Tour still works over at ESPN, Pat McAfee at ESPN,

(21:23):
you had Jeneralan Coachman back there for a while. There's
always been some kind of Buddy Buddy with that network
in the first place. And remember every time they have
any kind of events going on, they're always able to
get some kind of coverage for it. So it's worked
out for them. So they've had a good relationship with
each other for a while. So for this to be
brought in, it's just a matter of that. I mean,

(21:45):
ESPN probably wouldn't have gotten into this deal right now
if it wasn't and they were in buying mode, because
that's the whole thing that happened here Disney, which is
the parent company of the ESPN. This is the part
where Bob Eiger, the CEO of Disney side, we're we're
gonna go and do something right now for ESPN to
go and bolster it because we need certain streaming services

(22:07):
to bolster up, like there's in the Disney world of
their programming, of their media. They're doing some big things
right now. By twenty twenty six, Disney Plus and Hulu
will be merging together. Hulu was actually part of like
an acquisition that was like part owned by one company,
part owned by like three different companies, and the Disney

(22:28):
took over Hulu completely. But now Hulu is going to
go away. It's going to go into Disney Plus, and
Disney Plus will have all the Hulu programming and all that,
and then of course they'll have the bundle with ESPN,
which stands alone because it's such a big intellectual property anyway,
and Disney is making the deal to get their streaming

(22:50):
set up for twenty twenty six, so that you're gonna
have Disney Plus to be one big, huge app as
a big offer at the right price, ESPN being the
biggest sports package out there to put that at a
big price too, because you remember, with sports, it's all live stuff,
and what ESPN is getting are here is live. They

(23:10):
want as much live events, and since it's sports related,
w is always going to be be kind of part
of this pix too, just like UFC, because ESPN looks
at both of them in the same way. Even though
might be orchestrated or rehearsed or predetermined that's okay, but
they're still getting a lot from this. After all, it's

(23:31):
a big deal for them. And ESPN was already putting
money down into the NFL network, will full fledged NFL
network with getting additional NFL games, and they'll have the
Red Zone channel for NFL, which is where when all
the games are going on at the same time, you

(23:51):
can actually catch the highlights of all those games in
progress because of what they do. That's all a lot
of money they spent into all this and again for
the NFL to go into a deal like this with
ESPN a couple of DEAs happens for them, the Money
Night Football package that they beginning Monday Night Football now
for the last so many years, they're gonna probably be
sure that they're always gonna be able to have NFL

(24:13):
coverage on there because it's such a big property. I mean,
the fact that you're able to go and get in
on the deal with the prime the premium live events
for w let me tell you like this now Netflix,
because they have those premium live events on the international scale.
There's the benefit for them on Netflix for the deal

(24:35):
that they have over there. Because the truth is, if
you had to go and evaluate the money they're spending
right now on Monday Night Raw, they're not getting the
gun of value they're supposed to be get for Money
Night Row. It's not. It's just not. It's the pay
per views. So now we all know that as fans,
we're watching the pay per views the premium live events
we're watching. So ESPN is getting what people are actually

(24:57):
gonna watch, and if they want to just go ahead
and get themselves involved with like you know, highlights and
things like that, just to kind of incorporate what is
happening on the other shows, so they can go ahead
and bring those to the audience. They can be watching
all the we coverage that they need to go and
catch to get caught up on the premium live events
just by watching ESPN on whichever social media or on

(25:20):
their platforms. Because they're able to do that. ESPING got
a good deal for what three hundred and twenty five
three hundred and fifty million dollars a year. That's a
good deal for them. I mean, they're already used to
paying for NFL games that could be you know, several
million dollars, like tens of millions of dollars already just

(25:40):
for a three hour game. They're paying tens of millions
of dollars for them. They're going to get these pay
per views with the pre and post show covered taken
also have as well, and the fact that they're gonna
get some of these shows for these shows are gonna
be two night ers. Yeah, they're gonna do really well
on the deal. They'll sell advertiseing on it, they'll be
able to gonna put that out there as part of
the sub because if it ul subscribers at thirty bucks

(26:02):
a month get on there and it gets some of
those fans, that's real money. And I think, honestly, I mean,
you know, with the audience that Netflix gets and the
fact you might pay twenty three bucks for them, you're
not watching a lot of sports over there because Netflix
doesn't really get big into sports. They're doing things kind
of like a novelty. They got formiliar one, they got

(26:24):
you know, a couple of things here and there, but
they're really not the sports leader ESPN is. And to
have ESPN be a part of that as the whole
spectrum of sports, it's what TKO was always wanting to do.
And well, that's one of the things we got to
consider as well, is that TKO doesn't want to have

(26:45):
this the degree that we were growing up with. They
don't want to deliver that. I think they're gonna have
to learn that lesson at some point that you're gonna
need some of that, because that's what the legacy of
what W and Vince McMahon was built on. To go
ahead and just be completely ignorant of that. I mean,
that's a part of the benefit of DOT. I have

(27:05):
to give that the new ownership of W and TKO
by what they're doing, I mean they're leaving alone basically
what Trible h and the team are doing right now,
Paul Heyman and others of what they're doing at the moment.
Hey you know, the last couple of years they were
milking off of the bloodline storyline, which was a great storyline.

(27:27):
But now we don't have that such a compelling storyline,
I mean right now. Okay, John Cedar brock Leser, you
pulled that back together. That's another few do we get
now for the next paper? You at least and then
Seth Brown's and seam Punk with La Knight. Now that
brought them to mix. That's the other partner kind of
bring in here. So you have some things that are

(27:48):
front and center in the main event picture over there
that are gonna be interesting. Other than that, there's not
much else. So they're not gonna worry about storylines. Fine,
but what they have to do is they worry about
building stars of the future and in normal wrestling war
you're just not going to bring them up as an
athlete and think they're going to just become famous. No,

(28:09):
you got to let them amplify their characters. They got
to be able to cut good promos because some of
the things that people like about w that might not
be the end ring stuff are the promos. Is the
bravado is the ego, and the characters that they become,
the gimmicks they might have, the what makes them individual

(28:32):
indifferent If you just create a wrestler out there with
some you know, generic music and they're very generic and
their presentation, that doesn't work. But we need more people
that have a very distinguished, fleshed out character. It might
not have to be a gimmick. It don't have to
be anything it's like a novelty or anything that's you know,

(28:53):
make believer just over the top. But I think you've
got to have some of those types of people now,
and they're there's not many of those right now, and
that's where this company's gonna have to learn about that.
I mean, they kind of see things in that way
right now because look, even with Triple A and their
attachment to that right now. When they brought out mister Iguana,

(29:16):
Psycho clon on this back down. Hey, they brought the novelty.
It's not something that they built themselves. It was just
pre made in Mexico. And now, oh, look, this audience is,
you know, drawing into it. So you can see themselves
getting a little more into that. And you have a
few other stars that have basically a character or gimmick
built into them, but are they going to be able
to amplify it too much? Like Ray, Phoenix and Penta,

(29:37):
You're not getting much of that out of them. You're
just getting a look. Study of Care has a look,
but there's not much more to it. And you can't
expect that the end ring ability and their angering skill
is going to instantly make a star, you know, an
overnight sensation. I mean to wrestling fans, the juveitial delusional fandom.

(30:00):
But you gotta build this up for a bigger audience.
And that's what the creative part is missing, because they
do not have the idea of building up stars with
a syndicate character, a syndicant personality with several dimensions to
identify what this character is, which what other companies do Okay.

(30:23):
I mean, look, I'm gonna take a couple of ambles
from AW. You know, we were just looking tonight on
AW and just working for a TV and there's a
couple of characters they thought about right off the bat
that just tell me, man, they just do something with
you know, they might not really so much Tony Kahn's doing,
but like the creative license, the creative freedom that they

(30:45):
have over there allows them to create some more of
a wrestling like persona that is synonymous with what we've
seen in professional wrestling. Like look at what MGF does
on a regular basis to build himself as the star
that he is, all right, so much of a gimmick
that he's portrayed himself over the years. Look at the
match he had with Mark Briscoe, right, and you think
about MGF, you know exactly who that character is, to

(31:08):
the point that you know, on his own, he's gotten
himself into several movies in the last couple of years,
Iron Claw and Happy Go More Too, and who knows
what else comes after that. But like he's got a
fleshed out character. Everybody knows he is a draw. He
gets a response from every crowd, he gets to the
guy is a throwback to be able to go and
stay a character on a regular basis on whatever programming

(31:29):
goes on. That's a that's a lost art. The other
story I looked at tonight the team, the newly crowned
TNT champion, the proto star Kyle Fletcher, that guy six
months ago, maybe a year ago, when he was part
of Ossie Open, He wasn't anybody I even really thought about.

(31:51):
But you know what, there was an injury that had
and all of a sudden, look at what happened here.
I mean, he shaves his head, the whole change up.
Don Cows takes over and he's under his tuolage and
look at what changed. We had such a great difference
in the fact that now this guy has such a
ridiculous personality right now with the glasses, the little, you know,

(32:14):
things hanging off of them, the protostar gimmick, his bravado,
his ego, Don Cows set his side. What a big
difference that goes on with that, and you just see
it right there, and it's really just amazing, and I'm
really surprised and kind of blown away about how they
did that. But yeah, mgf look at the character that

(32:39):
he has. I mean that gimmick is going to continue
to evolve and change over time, and he's taken away
from several different elements. I mean, I get he gets
a kind of gives me a bit of a Rick
Flair vibe. You always give me that, a little bit
of Larry's Abisco Nick Bachwigle kind of out vibe, which
was great examples to be it okay. And I also
think when he was working with Chris Jericho, he got

(33:00):
a lot from the only idea of, you know, redefining yourself,
evolving yourself. I mean, he's been in the company five
six years now and he has continued to get and evolved.
There are still certain things that obviously are synonymous with him.
When you see Birdberry, you see the pattern of the scarf,
you know it's him. You hear the music, you know
it's him. You know what he's gonna say, you know

(33:22):
his catchphrases, all of it, and the same through with
Kyle Fletcher. I'm just starting to feel like you're seeing
him coming into his own as a as a as
a personality, as a character. Before that, I don't feel
like he was much of a character at all. He
was just like a great wrestler. But like it's the
same thing with Allsprey. You know, you kind of give
it some time to kind of build something more than

(33:43):
just aerial Assassine gives something more to that character, Oh, Kanda,
the same thing. You let him get to talk some more.
We know he had to already grow fetched out personality
in the rain Maker, all that was built in, but
then you get the chance to get here in a
little bit talk more. It's not just more and ring,
there's more to him. And the attachment to Don Colls,
who's just you know, he's I mean, we're never I'm

(34:06):
never gonna say he's Bobby Heena number two. I was like,
but he gives the vibe of Bobby Heena and what
the Feenian family was. That's exactly what he's trying to build.
And I like Don Collis's work. I think he's been
a great heel manager for all that he's working. He's
unapologetic at as well. He's like another stick to your
gun's heel. He can't be a face. You can never
see that guy as a face. He just can't be.

(34:30):
And the other part that I think would be helpful
if you can't make the stars turn into characters themselves,
then let's get some Crome RODDERI along with them. Okay,
I think there's something he said. We're not so much
where Paul Hayman's what he's doing right now is an
oracle or an advocate of a division. That doesn't matter,
because look what they're doing right now. Seth Wrong's is
the standout. But he's been like that for ten years plus,

(34:52):
like he's been a top star that whole time. And
then Bronson Reid hasn't really gotten anywhere yet either has
bron Breaker. Like they're just in the background. I don't
know what they're gonna do to get them to be
built up bigger going forward, but we don't know yet.
Surprising enough if I talked about this on the SummerSlam

(35:15):
post shows that I did over the weekend. Look at
Dominant Mysterio, I feel like he's coming into his own
right now, and I think what's helping him is the
fact he's getting to work in Mexico, the fact that
a triple A relationship they have now because they bought it,
Dominant Masterio now gets to go ahead and really play
into his roots, and the fact that this weekend will

(35:35):
probably become triple A Mega champion. I mean he is
already bigger than the new they already and I think
since Live Morgan has had to step away for injury,
which shouldn't have happened, but she did it anyway, that's
what the company wanted to do. Fine well without liv Morgan,

(35:56):
Dumbinant masterial is shining because we're not word of the
backdrop of Jamie McDonough or Finndalar or Rox and Perez
or roquelas they're completely in the rear view mirror. Dumbino
missterio is the star right now, and forget about Judgment Day.
We're not. I mean it's even attached to Judgment Day
really because you don't hear him being I mean does

(36:17):
he They say that he's representing Judgment Day. I just
see him out there and he's just out there kicking ass.
He's a star and I see his star rising. And
I think the sooner they can go ahead and detach
him from Judgment Day, the better. I think you could
do some more where if you could have some more

(36:39):
veterans that can actually be accompanying some of the stars.
They have to the ring to be the mouthpieces. I mean,
they don't have any shortage of those kind of people
over there if they wanted to, but they don't, and
it's unfortunate, and there's only gonna be so much they're
gonna do right now with some of the stars they
have that are veterans, because they're not gonna give them
up to a higher level. Like you have stars that

(37:01):
had definitely have prowess, and they actually definitely have presence
Randy Orton or Iron Killings or AJ styles I mean
obviously flesh style starts, but they're not gonna be the
front focus. And some of those that you have a
little more of a defining character or gimmick or personality
to them, they're not gonna noticed carry on a cross now.

(37:23):
As far as we've been hearing this weekend, carrying across
is Carla Bordeaux's contracts are up, that they're talking about
W's gonna be done. We don't know if they're going
to resign, we haven't heard anything yet. But what happens
next is what are you gonna do? I mean, for

(37:43):
the fans of W, you should be celebrating the fact
that the ESPN deal happened. This is where ESPN, another
big broadcast partner. Again, you're getting a billion dollars a
year on all the deals you're getting. You're getting half
a billion three twenty five. Now coming up with twenty

(38:03):
twenty six, you're gonn get three hundred some three hundred
and twenty five undred and fifty billion dollars from ESPN,
right that big bump they got from that whatever seventy
eighty million they're getting from CW the NBAC Universal, which
is like another two hundred fifty million dollars whatever, like,
Think about that billion dollars are making off of everything.

(38:24):
A year, they're clearing a billion dollars. The most important
thing that this company needs to do is not scrounge
upon this. They got all this lockdown. Money checks are
gonna keep coming, they cash in all the time. But
for the sake of the company, they cannot sit on
their laurels and just set the current cast of characters

(38:46):
that are running the creative right now. That unreal thing
was disappointing and a bit worrisome in my opinion. I
was concerned by it. But when I look at what
they're doing right now all together there, I think, if
they can get things wrapped up. Listen, he got a three,
four or five year window to get this right. People

(39:09):
complaining a lot about everything else, and listen, the social
media noise is a social media noise. People complaining about
Blockclaster coming back. Oh the whole race. You know, he's
a rapist, serial rapist, Janelle Grant, all that stuff. Okay,
so everything's been said that it was more than a
month ago. He's been cleared of anything that could have
been of any allegations that were being made or any
kind of mentions of him. Fact that he was mentioned

(39:31):
in the court documents forty four times. Remember, the accusation
was that brock Lester, in the whole context of everything,
all he was doing was signing a new deal with
the company, and the idea was is that Jane Grant
was being offered up as part of as a bargaining

(39:52):
chip to make sure that brock signed. We don't know
anything else about the fact that Janel Grant or brock
Lester e interacted or ever even saw each other in
person or whatever happened to that. But again, this is
not in court. This is under mediation right now, this
is being arbitrated. So right now it's not about any
particular particular criminal charges that being put against Vist McMahon

(40:14):
or John Loreniitis or anybody in the right. It is
all civil. So right now, Janelle Grant and her attorney
and cows, they want restitution, you know, they want to
go ahead and get compensated for paying to suffer or
whatever else. If it's proven, fine, so they get paid.

(40:36):
But other than that, that's all it is. And Brocklaster
was not part of that. But then there's also those
who gonna be also can put it in about Brockcluster
because of the fact that, oh, you're bringing this guy
back every time you got to go and get a
big pop, or you got to go in and do
something where you don't have any young stars. If you've
got a John Scene in the ring or a Goldberg
or whatever else, you got to figure out if you
need to go and get a big opponent for a

(40:57):
big star, you have to go back to well, you
have to go back to what's what's worked. So go
back and find brock Listener, sign him, get him back
for whatever deal he's gonna get. And here you go
the big pop at SummerSlam, and they got it, and
people were talking about it with the juveitial delusion fandom
all complaining because they don't know what they're talking about.

(41:20):
You can feign ignorance or stupidity all you want, Just
like the people that listen to the they were check
out the SPN deal and I saw all the ramp
and rant and rating about that today as well, all
the pricing and all this. In fact, oh no, look
at this, you got ESPN L You gotta pay thirty bucks?
Are go pay for it? Well, you know, nobody's reading
the fine print or really kind of digging into the details.
That's why you listen to this program, because at least

(41:43):
I'm trying to give you the context. It's not a
blanket accusation that's like that. You know what, even though
I might be critical of a lot of things, at
least for me, I will try to give benefit of
the doubt and I will at least try to make
sense of everything. I don't just come out here and
just throw accusations. Leusch, you're right and think that's all
that's going to be an sset, No, not at all.
It's the other thing too that's going to be talking about. So,

(42:06):
like I said, TTO is doing what they were designed
to do for this company when Vince bic Maan sold
W to TKO, what TKO was going to do with
this company is exactly what they're doing right now. They're
making other acquisitions and they're amplifying and building up who
they own to make more money. Man. At the same time,

(42:30):
they're actually legitimizing W in a way that whatever limitations
of this BigMan had or what he didn't want to do,
we're taken away because what Nick Con was able to
do to connect and where vispcg Man also had to
connect with Ri Emmanuel and Mark Shapiro and all these
folks here to build on TKO as this group holding

(42:53):
we UFC all these other properties and putting it all
together to make it work. So they got this now
like w's locked in Okay. A couple of years ago,
I wasn't sure what the future this company was going
to be because if they were going to be able
to last, the fact that people were cutting the cables,

(43:16):
cutting the cord for cable and streaming was out there,
like even for the chance that they were going to
be able to get onto a new deal, is USA
never decided to go and drop them. That was never
a guarantee that they were going to be able to
find a new home, but they have found everything they wanted. Remember,
they did not come out of Fox looking the best

(43:38):
because even though the ratings might not have been horrible,
the advertising they were trying to go and sell for
Friday nights did not work, which means Fox decided to
pivot after their five year deal was done. So they
ran through a deal that did not work well for Fox.
Now ESPN's coming in, but what they're getting specifically is
going to be benefiting. But he's in them, the deal

(43:59):
will be and you know it's supposedly a ten year deal,
but there's a five year option for Netflix if they're
going to like what they're gonna get from w right now,
that's the one broadcast partner that they're gonna pro evaluate
themselves in five years. Are gonna say, hey, you know what,
it's just been working for us. You know what I mean?
Has money night? We're all been really that worthwhile to
pay them to produce a show every Monday night, give

(44:21):
us two and a half hours. Is it really doing
enough for us? I mean probably for the international stuff,
but like for the US audience, they're gonna have to
ask that question themselves later on. So things overall for
the company from a business standpoint are great. Couldn't be happier.

(44:43):
If you don't stock in W right now, you're probably
you know, living like a pig and slot you are happy. Okay.
So w under Tko does what's best for business for them.
It does not translate to what the fans might want.
But when I look at it for today, they got

(45:05):
a victory, they got a big win. Good on them.
That's positive. That is the good things that they have
right now in this company. But of course this program
we talk about the creative because we're watching the television show,
we're watching the eclips that are out there, and we're
watching the paper views of the build ups. All these
paper views we're gonna see every month or almost every month.

(45:27):
So let's think about it like this. Why is it
that the social media buzz, the noise, the du to
delusional fandom. Why do they have to keep taking shots
at AW because honestly, what is it a AW does
that attacks W at a regular basis. I mean, they're

(45:48):
not trying to count our program W right. I don't
see them trying to do anything in terms of copying
what w is doing. Either they're not. They're both staying
alone companies. We get the constant arguments criticism of fans

(46:11):
that might have given a bit of a loyalty to
AW from the onset as a fresh new company with
all these stars that were very familiar with and happy with,
and they saw some of the familiar stars they had
from WE that jumped ship, and some of them have
jumped back. But have any of the stars from AW
that went back or have joined the company, have they

(46:34):
benefited at all? I mean, do we see Ethan Page,
Ricky Saint, Shawn Spears, Blake Monroe, Are any of them
benefiting right now at all by being over there? I mean,
there's only Cody Rhodes that has truly benefited from making
them move back to WREE. But that was because he

(46:56):
had a chip on his shoulder. He'd had so much
time in that company in the first place for him
to go back, and we already know definitively now his
decision to leave AW to go back to w I
was questioning if it was gonna be the right move,
but it was. At the end of the day, it
has been. He's been treated great and I think part

(47:20):
of it also happens to be where Vincemicmann is no
longer there, So whatever his reservations were about Cody Roads before,
that's no longer the case Now. Cody Roads is a
top star, He's a champion again. Great, he has benefited greatly.
So regardless of what you think about what happened in AW,
it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Now.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
There might have been some shots that might have been
taken beforehand, say if it's Young Bucks or Kenna Omega
or the other EVPs there. Who knows some of the
comments that were made out there, like with Brian Danielsen
and what he felt about with Wrestlemanian some comments of
him had said lately MVP having comments about Triple H
and not, you know, being negative about that. And of

(48:04):
course the blowback today was MVP having issues with Speedball
Mike Bailey, which, by the way, there was a clip
I just saw an X today or tonight going on
from their event on Dynamite tonight and I saw, oh,
look looks like everything it's okay with there. I mean
they were in Cleveland on how tonight and they were

(48:26):
talking shit. I mean, that's all hurt sending it with Speedball,
Mike Bailey backstage, they're just talking shit does that's all.
There's any camaraderie or any kind of animosity over there.
So I don't know what happened, what brought all that
stuff over there, but I guess everything's okay. So now
people want to go ahead complain about AW because if

(48:48):
they're not happy with WRIE, they expect and they thought
that AW was gonna be complimentary to the same kind
of programming that they used to on WE right, but
they're not. Tony kN does not want to do what
Vis McMahan did. Tony con does not want to do
what Triple A is doing right now. It's very clear that,

(49:09):
and they're not. I totally have no issue with AW
doing what they're doing right now as it is. Otherwise
it doesn't matter. But the juveial, delusional fantom out there
wants to go ahead and run roughshod on anything AW does.
And you know what part of the reason is too.

(49:29):
It's the stoking of the flames by some of the
fans of AW. Let's make that clear too. I don't
make a big point about that, but it's true. AW
fans they want to go ahead and start creating this
kind of one opsminship. Okay, they are loyal and juvenile
delusions to their own brand as well. Okay, to be

(49:51):
completely clear and honest and transparent, there is a juveial
delusional fandom that's much bigger in WY. But there's all
as juvenile delusional fandom on the AW side. Is that clear.
Both sides have their own levels of juvenile immaturity and
delusion because they don't need to go ahead and be

(50:12):
taking off on each other. But people wantn't want to
go ahead, and you know, and the thing is social media,
people don't really want to go ahead and trash talk
the right way. This is all keyboard Warriors trash talking,
which is the worst kind of trash talking. No, do
it face to face. If you're gonna do that, not
this right here. Okay, if you're a sports fan, okay,
I'm a timp Bay Buccaneers fan and I see an
Eagles fan across the way. We want to talk shit

(50:34):
to each other, we go ahead and look at each other
face to face. We're not gonna, you know, throw fists,
but we'll talk shit. And that's normal, and I'll do
that kind of trash talking. But this kind of stuff
here on social media, you know, behind computers. Uh uh,
behind phones? Oh no, I don't like that at all. Stupid.
And of course we also see all the things that

(50:55):
are going on where there's a amplifying of what the
live content creators it's witch streamers, if you will, and
what they're doing right now, and how they react to
certain video into certain things out there, because there's a
lot of influences that want to make sure they get
noticed by either brand. You know, it's a chance to

(51:18):
be famous. So Andrew Badala actually put out a comment
here on x I'll bring this up real quick, and
you know, I just want to go and read it
because there's a lot of that he says here, and
I just want to get a take on it and
just you know, look at it from his perspective. He says,
I noticed a growing sentiment among live reactions streamers and

(51:41):
content creators expressing concerns about the sustainability of the content type,
especially in the context of de V and its evolving landscape.
It makes sense considering the shifting accessibility and the overall
perceptions of these streamers. The situation, however, could actually present
a significant opportunity for AW, if I had to say
in the direction for AW, I would capitalize on this
by for intioneering themselves from the W. I do. I

(52:03):
think they're not trying to be the same. And the
thing is that for AW, they were always given by
the juvenile delusional W fan base. When W was not
doing great twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, there were lofty,

(52:24):
impossible expectations for AW to come in here right away
and think they're gonna come in here like WW and
Eric Bischoff, because that's all every peope was thinking that
this is the next version of Eric Beschoff with WW,
and we're gonna, you know, destroy the w W where
you're not. That's not what they we're gonna try to do.

(52:44):
But after everything that's been done, and by the way,
the stoky of the flames from the AW juvenile delusional fandom,
but then from W it comes from the people in Stanford,
Connecticut because of the counterprogramming on purpose, the fact they
want to put NXT out there and keep throwing it

(53:05):
out there as a deterrent against AW. First, when they
came up with dynamite on Tuesday Nights and moved to
Wednesday nights and what for a good year and a
half NXT putting up them and throwing NXT to the wild,
making it two hours, making it live, and hoping that

(53:27):
developmental system and trying to create it into something more
of a third brand, which is now it's not. It's
not even like a hybrid of a developmental system. It's
like it's stopped and then they went ahead and put
it out there. AW survived. Now these pay per views

(53:48):
that come up for AW and NXT, they keep throwing
at what they're doing and trying to build a lot
of other events around an AW pay per view. I mean,
it's it's not coincid dental, let's bump purpose and it's
an old trick done by other wrestling promoters back in
the day. So that's what's being done. They're going trying
to do that whatever. But aw' is not going away.

(54:11):
Tony CON's done a pretty good job on him of
his own. He's got a good relationship with Warner Brothers
Discovery now Discovery because they're going to be the cable
partner that's going to be holding on everything else. But
they're working with Winter, Warner Brothers Discovery anyway, because Warner
Brothers owns maas Discovery runs the cable networks. Because they're
separating those two companies as standalones where streaming and the

(54:32):
big movie stuff goes for Warner Brothers under that brand
and Discovery handles all the cable TV stuff. That's their plan.
More from Inebidal, I would cap right, So he says,
inviting popular live reaction streamers in their paper fore events
each month could create a win win scenario. By allowing

(54:52):
content creators to produce authentic, unfilled contractrict of awed events,
the promotion can only expand its reach but also track
the water audience. No, no, because those live streamers andrew
are an echo chamber. You're not building a bigger audience
than these live streamers. They're not out there with an
expanded audience based outside of wrestling. I mean, what are

(55:13):
they doing outside of what? Maybe gaming, maybe some other things,
But really those live streamers as influencers, they're wrestling fans,
and wrestling fans don't necessarily translate to mainstream society or
mainstream social media itself. I mean, it's just not the same.
You're not gonna build a bigger audience from that. You're
just gonna pick from the same echo chamber because some

(55:35):
of those same church streamers don't just watch the three.
They watch AW and I see some of those I
see Santa Zappa, Minerva and others, and they all kind
of do that. Ron and also the other podcasters they
will talk about AW. Some of them are much more
critical because they have a personal animosity towards AW because

(55:57):
they were not given access. Okay, well that's they're on
their own. But you know that's not necessarily you know, beneficial.
That's just going to be deconstructed to what they could
be actually be doing. You know, they can still be
critical of the AW of course, but the thing is
it's now on pure hatred. I mean, there's a bias
that's out there for some of those jubilusial fans on

(56:20):
the W side the AW side, Yeah, same thing, but
they're also watching the WE content because they were watching
before aw I even existed. We know that. He says
that streamers should be able to engage with fans on site,
stream their reactions live, and connect postmatch interviews. Look, they
already try to do that at WrestleMania with Kai Sinnat

(56:44):
and I show speed in others did that really make
much of a difference. No, not necessarily, because you're talking
about streamers that are also on the level that W
was trying to get after. You know, they didn't get
that much traction from the many way. Where does W
get traction from? Well, of course that's you know, when

(57:07):
they brought Jilly Roll out there to go ahead and
compete in a ring at Summer Slam, to let Cardi
B come out in host because she has a new
album coming out. Those kinds of things they're going to
continue to do. And of course they have the celebrities
in attendance around the arena, all the sports stars, all
the rappers. That's the kind of thing they're trying to
get where they getting pop culture together. That's the involvement.

(57:29):
They don't need to go and do anything more. And
that's like the same way that UFC would present and
have the kind of outside influence coming in boxing especially
Look at what Jake Paul and Logan Paul do right
now with what Jake Paul does with boxing, Look what
they do right now, same thing goes. It's like it's
the the people you see that are at ringside, that participate,

(57:53):
they're a part of it. And the other people they
bring into the mix. That's the kind of direction of
the culture that TK wants to go combat sports. They
want to go into that route and go even more
to what maybe the other band, main Street Sports does,
whether it's NFL especially or the NBA, that's where they
want to go. He goes on to say that it

(58:13):
wouldn't make the normally make the events more engagement, but
also provide a unique perspective of the Capsulans. They're established
audiences and could help ew car out in each for
itself and build a stronger connection with fans and content
creators in a way that might not be able to replicate. No,
because w is already gonna have they can just go
and pick off whatever they want from Tryst, streamers or
wherever they're coming from, from Kke, whatever else. They're gonna
go ahead and watch the content no matter what. And

(58:34):
they want to go ahead and pick a cheo somebody
that gives a great response, they're gonna take that. They
don't need to have any kind of control or buying
anybody out into it. No, you don't want to have
any paid influences anyway, you know, just get you to
do the product. That you have look for themselves. Yeah,
Amnion viewers at the very beginning of the onset going
up against NXT for themselves doing pretty well. Now they're

(58:59):
running what six one hundred thousand sub to seven hundred
thousand viewers on a regular basis collision four hundred five
hundred thousand viewers, and there's still not even a study
spot in the lineup right now. Thursday or Saturday or
wherever they are. They don't have necessarily a spot for
themselves anyway. But you know, if they make some big

(59:20):
events going on, whether it's for London, for Forbidden Door
or all in Texas, they're making some good money off
of that. If they want to go and do residencies
in a smaller arena like it did for Chicago the
last couple of weeks, BID did that fine too. And
part of the thing is that AW has pivoted, and
it's done a pretty good job of pivoting in themselves

(59:41):
to help continue to make things right. Because listen, they
also don't want to be an arenas that are going
to be half filled, so they were avoiding that part
and when they decided to go and make some changes
in there to get rid of all that they made.
They made a pivot, getting some more creative places to
go and work from and present, and it worked out
for them. We also really don't know the numbers of
Max now. I don't believe it's five hundred thousand viewers.

(01:00:03):
But some people might might go out there and say, oh, well,
that's the blanket number they're always going to get guaranteed. Oh,
I don't think so. I think it might be more
like one hundred thousand viewers they probably get on Max
on a regular basis. I can believe that. I don't
think it's gonna be too much less than that. I
think that's a pretty decent average on any given Wednesday night.

(01:00:26):
So if you're getting that seven hundred eight hundred thousand
viewers total, and then you know, add the extra seven
three to seven days of on demand viewing and you
get up to a million viewers, that's still not pretty bad.
That's not that bad compared to for a company that's
still been out there for only so many years, and
you know, trying to go up against the cable and

(01:00:46):
try to go ahead and create a product that is
making people have a reason to go watch on cable
in the first place. You've got to hope that what
HBO Max is doing right now is going to get
you to go and build for their audience and what
they're going to be doing. And they're also their own
changes with sports to go and continue to go out there,
and for AW, the same thing goes for them, but
they're also diversifying their portfolio too, having their pay per

(01:01:08):
views available on Amazon Prime as opposed to Triller, and
getting themselves to put out there more right, but AW
as well, they kind of just stick to their own
kind of feel like. I mean, the one thing I
can say is that they could be schlocky, they could
be campy, they could goof around. I mean, hell, if

(01:01:29):
you catch the AW feed without the commercials am I
still hear Shavanni and Taz and Nick Scalbert talking like
it s AW dark, Like they just go ahead and
just kind of just clown on each other and it's funny,
and they're just kind of like their own their own
creative demise. They're just kind of only out there doing
their own thing like they always do. So AW just

(01:01:50):
kind of runs their own way. And Tony Kahan has
a direction he wants to go with it, and there's
a lot of you know, combinent people that are over
there trying to help to contribute to what they're doing.
You have creative control with the stars they have over there,
what they're doing. I mean, look, if you didn't have that,
you wouldn't have Townless, Tony Storm, other proto star Kyle

(01:02:12):
Fletcher or MJF. I mean, that's just what it is.
And honestly, if Tony kNN did not have to worry
about booking Ring of Honor, if he had time to
Gun just and that's the other thing, and nobody even
talked about either, is that How much of a difference
has there been since Tony con took over Ring of
Honor and having the book for that show. It's not

(01:02:33):
like he's having somebody else book it. He's still doing that.
If he was able to just commit time and the
production means they're just starting to do now. If they
just had to focus only on aw programming and he
didn't have Ring of Honor to go and worry about, man,
I think at the time you have the Gun and
really do some even more stuff over there. But it's
a lot of programm into Gun and cover. I mean

(01:02:55):
not so much as it was before because they don't
have Battle of the Belts, they don't have Dark and
Dark Elevation. It's an hour Ring of Honor and to
our shows, and they're figuring it out, and also we
need to be able to make sure that the events
that they have, you know, to do a thing where
they're doubling up on not necessarily doing live collision events,

(01:03:16):
but they're doing it more where they're doing events and
they're just taping collision after and they're figuring things out.
So what they have is a pretty good system over there.
But you know, people want to go and complain because
that's what social media is. It's just it's just a
big wall of complaints. Sometimes so much negativity and sometimes
you just gotta extract yourself and pull yourself away from

(01:03:38):
what's going on here because it's just too much. Now
we have matches that are scheduled for this weekend, Triple
A's Triple Amnia thirty three, so they're not doing multiple
shows that they did before. I guess right, which is good.
And this will be at Arena Mexico. Actually it's next
Saturday night. I thought it was this. Wee get notice

(01:04:00):
next Saturday night, the sixteenth of August, and the plan
for them is the event's gonna stream on Wree's YouTube
channel with English and Spanish language commentary. Fantastic. So I
don't know if Corey Graves is gonna go work with
Conine again. We get that kind of set up again.
But this is like a full fledge, you know, Triple
A doing their biggest show of the year. Arguably it

(01:04:24):
usually is. That's the plan. So they already have other
matches already scheduled with a number of W stars in
the mix. L Messius will be facing Elihi to Doctor
Wager Junior, and that's where the Triple A Latin American Championship.
They already got that set up. Remember him as Judas

(01:04:47):
Messius and TNA back in two thousand and seven, and
Luca Underground he was Milmorets and King Wort does an MLW.
I forget all about that man. So yeah, Latin American Championship,
you've got that set up. Los Garza are defending the
Triple A World Tag Team Tunnels against Pegano and Cycle Clown.

(01:05:10):
Judgment Day will be in a mixed trios match. That's
findal Argia McDonough and Raco Rigaz against mister Gguana, Ninho,
Hamburgesa and Lila Vice and the fatal four way match
we've been talking about. That's for the Triple A Mega
Championship ilhe Within Vikingo defending against dominicqu Masterio, Dragon Lee
and El Grande Americano. That's all set up for it
next Saturday night. Perfect and that's Whe're gonna leave it

(01:05:32):
at that. That's pretty good stuff to me. Had so
much to talk about again, I'm you know, I remember
for a while I was having an issue trying to
go and get make sure you could get up to
an hour, but I also wanted to make sure I
did not just do an hour just for the sake
of an hour. I wanted to make sure I had
a lot to talk about. And you know, wrestling has
been so interesting and so news field for the last

(01:05:55):
few months. It's been amazing, especially after WrestleMania. So much
going on. So glad go and see all that and
another good weekend, a wrestling from SummerSlam, a couple of
good things keeping going out of that. We'll see what
they followed us from that, and again we'll follow and
we'll see what they're gonna be doing with Triple Mania
coming up next week, build up The Forbidden Doors coming
up forward as well, and more. Anyway, we'll come back

(01:06:17):
next week. We'll know the wrestlers or podcast because wrestling
needs us