SquaredCircle

"Slim Jim values integrity and respect in all of our partnerships. Given the recent disturbing allegations against Vince McMahon, at this time we've decided to pause our promotional activities with WWE This decision reflects our commitment to our brand values and responsibility to our community.

We will continue to monitor the situation and base our future engagements on our values and what’s best for our brand"

Looks like Okada and Moné will soon be All Elite!

Some notes regarding the Vince McMahon and WWE lawsuit that was filed yesterday by former WWE employee Janel Grant based on questions PWInsider.com has received over the last 24 hours:

*Jerry McDevitt was Vince McMahon's attorney for the NDA with Grant but no longer represents McMahon and has all but retired, so for those who asked, McDevitt would not be defending McMahon or even WWE here. McDevitt has not represented McMahon since he made the decision to come out his WWE retirement.

*In something that sounds absolutely insane, the NDA for Grant included a clause that if she needed a reference for future employment from WWE, she was directed to go to John Laurinaitis for the reference, which given the allegations in the suit, is mind-blowing, to say the least.

*One allegation in the lawsuit was that Grant claimed that no one spoke to her or utilized any documentation she had during the WWE Board of Directors investigation into Vince McMahon. PWInsider.com is told that investigation was conducted by a third-party, not WWE itself.

*While the Wall Street Journal has surmised the WWE talent Grant mentions in her lawsuit is Brock Lesnar, Lesnar is never named in the suit and is not a defendant in the lawsuit.

*WWE has not made, as of this writing, any internal statement to their employees about The Wall Street Journal article. The prevous WSJ articles all led to either a company meeting or a statement that was issued privately. Thus far, that has not been the case. As you can imagine, a lot of employees we've spoken to were really upset and disgusted with the allegations.

*As TKO Group Holding noted in their statement yesterday, Vince McMahon is not involved in the day to day operations of WWE anymore. As we have noted many times here during audio discussions in the Elite section, his current position is more of a ceremonial title at this point. Nick Khan and Paul Levesque are overseeing the company.

*It is not known whether TKO could force Vince McMahon to step down from his position as Executive Director of the TKO Board of Directors. The question to be answered is whether there is a morals clause in McMahon's contract with TKO and whether that could be a factor in his status going forward.

*There has been no public acknowledgment that the federal investigation into McMahon has ever closed, so yes, that is something that could come to the surface again, as far as anyone knows.

*The story has gotten a lot of attention and we are told that a lot of media outlets are starting work on their own coverage. The New York Times covered the story this morning. All the major entertainment trade publications covered it. The story won't go away overnight.

*Court records indicate that as of this morning, WWE, Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis all have yet to be served with the lawsuit.

"A couple of years ago, I'm not close friends with a lot of people, but a long time ago when Shinsuke came up from NXT, at the time I was doing the thing where everybody who shows up wrestles me. I didn't really know him, I didn't really watch Japanese wrestling, I don't watch our wrestling. I famously don't watch wrestling, I hate everything because I was in a bad place, but I love my job and doing what I do. After WrestleMania, Shinsuke comes up (to the main roster), does whatever he does, and we're overseas. Him and I had to stay and do the dark match after TV and everyone else went on. We're sitting next to each other, we put a couple of matches together, I'm not really outspoken. I had requested a bottle of jackfire whiskey and we had that for the ride. 'You want a sip?' We just start talking, we had a couple of whiskeys, and we were buddies. It was so great because he's the biggest sweetheart in the world. We had a good bond I liked wrestling with him," said Nemeth.

"A long time ago, every time my contract comes up, I'm like, 'I'm going to get out of here. I have nothing left to do, I'm kind of sitting on the bench.' Break in case of emergency when someone is having a world title match or something. [Shinsuke] goes, 'If you ever get out of here, I have some connections and I would like to help you out.' 'That's so cool, I don't know anybody.' Years and years go by, and I sent an email to the boss. This is Vince [Vince McMahon]. At the time, we were not sure what was going on, but I sent Vince and incredibly long email, 90% thankful, 'Oh my God, the years were so great, you taught me to do all this stuff.' 10%, 'This is messed up, I have to get the hell out of here, there is no purpose for me to be getting paid millions of dollars to sit on the bench or to be a three minute match like a local. Pay locals to do this. There is no reason for me to be here.' I didn't hear anything back for two weeks and then I found out I was released," he said.

Nemeth continued, "I sent that to a few different people, I don't want to name names, but I sent it to very important people. Vince was the only one that wrote back, instantly, and was like, 'this is a lot to unpack, let's talk about it further.' 'Sir, if you want me to fly to Stamford tomorrow, I'll be on a flight.' He said, 'Thanks, we'll think about it.' Two weeks later, I was released. First thing I wanted to do was, I've never done independents. I've never gone around the country, except with WWE many times. I was like, 'I'm still friends with Shin [Nakamura]. Hey Shin, do you think I'm still good at wrestling? What do you think about Japan?' He's like, 'I got you.' Put a couple of pieces together, get to Rocky Romero, who is the go between, and luckily for me, they were happy and excited. That was one of the first things I did when I got released. First week in."

Cause the wrestling world needs the laughs today.

Tonight, TNA comes to us from the Palms Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada! The card includes:

• TNA Knockouts World Championship: © Jordynne Grace vs. Trinity

• Kazuchika Okada & Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley vs. The System (Moose, Brian Myers, & Eddie Edwards)

• Nic Nemeth vs. Zachary Wentz

• MK Ultra (Masha Slamovich & Killer Kelly) vs. Dani Luna & Jody Threat

• Chris Bey vs. Kevin Knight

And more!

TNA Impact! starts at 8pm EST | 5pm PST on AXStv, Fight Network, YouTube Insiders, Impact+, and DAZN. Check your local listings for more information.

Sex pest is a sex pest, but he's too rich to go to prison

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

WWE announcer Kevin Patrick has been officially released by WWE, PWInsider.com can confirm.

As we reported earlier this week, Patrick was removed from his role as the lead announcer on Friday Night Smackdown.

Patrick had been with WWE from March 2021 on. He was promoted to lead Raw announcer in October 2022 before shifting to the Smackdown brand.

While Patrick was liked personally, there had been a feeling for some time that he was not the right person for the role. WWE initially put Michael Cole back on the team with the internal hope that he would be able to steer Patrick in the right direction.

PWInsiderElite.com reported the following on 1/10: "There are some in the company watching to see how Kevin Patrick does on Smackdown without Michael Cole steering the ship. There's a feeling in some circles that Patrick really needs to step up as an announcer in the months ahead if he wants to maintain that position."

PWInsider.com is told that Patrick had been set to travel to Smackdown this week in Florida, so it was obviously a last minute decision.

”For most of the world, they’re going to be taking over the WWE Network. The WWE Network itself, that exists outside the United States, that will be folding at the end of the year and Netflix will pick up the content.”

”So a lot of people have asked will they pick up all the content? All the archives? I don’t know. But they will be the sole source of that, the archival content of all the old territories and all the old stuff that was on the old WWE Network. That will, that will move to Netflix outside the United States in January.”

‘‘And when the Peacock deal is up, if Netflix were to get that, that’d be interesting to see how much more they would pay. Obviously, it’s a $200 million deal per year deal right now. So that’s the next deal. That’s coming up.”

https://www.f4wonline.com/podcasts/wrestling-observer-radio/wrestling-observer-radio-ice-train-your-netflix-questions-answered-dynamite-and-nxt-more

It's Wednesday, you know what that means!

Tonight, Dynamite is LIVE from Savannah, GA! The card includes:

• Adam Copeland vs. Minoru Suzuki

• “Hangman” Adam Page vs. Penta El Zero Miedo

• Swerve Strickland vs. Jeff Hardy

• The Undisputed Kingdom's Wardlow vs. Best Friend's Trent Beretta

• AEW WORLD TRIOS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH: © Daddy Ass & The Acclaimed (Anthony Bowens & Max Caster) vs. The Mogul Embassy (Bishop Kaun, Brian Cage, & Toa Liona)

• Thunder Rosa vs. Red Velvet

• We'll hear from Samoa Joe!

• Darby Allin and Sting respond to the Young Bucks!

• “Timeless” Toni Storm will go face-to-face with Deonna Purrazzo!

And more!

Show starts at 8pm EST | 5pm PST | 7pm CST | 1am BST

AEW can be found on: TBS in the US, TSN+ in Canada, ViX in Latin America, ESPN in Australia, and FITETV/DAZN in the UK, EU, and elsewhere.

Looks like the last list wasn't fully accurate, we'll be getting:

• Chris Adams
• Sensational Sherri
• Terry Gordy
• Black Saturday
• Chris Colt
• Sandman
• Earthquake
• Harley Race
• Buff Bagwell
• Brutus Beefcake

James Mitchell's live cocaine shenanigans proved one of wrestling's costliest mistakes ever. And it all went down at a pay-per-view event called NWA Samhain.

Can't catch a break, fuck.

WWE inks $5B deal with Netflix for 'Raw' starting in '25

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/01/23/wwe-raw-inks-10-year-deal-with-netflix

#wrestling #prowrestling #professionalwrestling #wwe #tko #netflix #raw #smackdown #nxt #sq #squaredcircle #SquaredCircle

Netflix Inc. has acquired the exclusive rights to Raw as well as other programming from World Wrestling Entertainment, marking the streaming service’s first big move into live events.

Raw will air on Netflix in the US, Canada, Latin America and other international markets beginning in January 2025, after the expiration of the WWE’s domestic deal with Comcast Corp. The company will also become the exclusive home outside the US for all WWE shows and specials, including Smackdown and NXT, as well as pay-per-view live events like Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and Royal Rumble. The pay-per-view events will be included at no additional cost for Netflix customers.

After attracting more than 200 million customers by offering films and TV shows on-demand, Netflix has now committed to offering three hours of live wrestling a week starting next year. The company hopes the deal will bring in millions of loyal WWE viewers and provide a boost for its fledgling advertising-supported plan. Netflix has been dabbling in live events for the last year, airing a live comedy special, as well as a golf match, but this is the first long-term rights deal.

The WWE is the latest major live event to shift from cable TV to streaming. Ultimate Fighting Championship, which like WWE is owned by TKO Group Holdings Inc., offers many of its matches on ESPN+, while the National Football League sold Amazon.com Inc. the rights to Thursday Night Football. A playoff game on Comcast’s Peacock just delivered the largest streaming audience for any professional sports event in the US.

While the WWE isn’t exactly a sport — most of the storylines are scripted — it draws a consistent live audience akin to a sporting event. Raw is the most-watched of the WWE’s programs, drawing about 1.5 million viewers per show. It debuted in 1993 and has been the training ground for future movie stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena.

“By combining our reach, recommendations and fandom with WWE, we’ll be able to deliver more joy and value for their audiences and our members,” Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said in a statement. The company has also licensed the rights to WWE’s documentaries and original series.

Comcast paid about $265 million a year for the rights to Raw, but the owner of NBCUniversal last year acquired the rights to Smackdown, considered the second-best package, for about $287 million a year. Shares in TKO, the owner of WWE, sank on the news as investors had been hoping the package would score a bigger payday. They also feared WWE would struggle to find a lucrative new home for Raw. Investors didn’t account for Netflix’s newfound interest in live entertainment, however.

TKO has now secured long-term deals for all of its biggest properties, and will negotiate its next deal for the UFC in 2025.

“Our partnership fundamentally alters and strengthens the media landscape, dramatically expands the reach of WWE and brings weekly live appointment viewing to Netflix,” Mark Shapiro, TKO’s president, said in a statement.

#wrestling #prowrestling #professionalwrestling #wwe #tko #therock #dwaynejohnson #sq #squaredcircle #SquaredCircle

Johnson Granted Full Ownership of Trademarked Name, “The Rock” TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) (“TKO”), a premium sports and entertainment company, has appointed Dwayne Johnson to its Board of Directors, effective today. Johnson, one of the most decorated WWE Superstars in company history and the most followed American man globally on social media platforms, brings decades of experience in live entertainment and sports to the Board. Through his expansive business portfolio, which includes Seven Bucks Productions, Teremana Tequila, ZOA Energy, Project Rock, and the recently combined spring football league, the United Football League (UFL), Johnson has significant experience identifying and cultivating revenue generating media rights, live events, sponsorship, licensing, and social media opportunities. The appointment of Johnson reflects TKO’s commitment to delivering long-term value and strong performance for shareholders through strategic growth initiatives across both UFC and

WHAT FUCKING WORLD ARE WE LIVING IN LMAO

"Like I said, I'm not surprised. Corey Graves has been totally carrying the SmackDown announcing. I don't know who they'll bring in, could be Vic Joseph.

"Nick Khan likes to hire sports people, but the problem is, announcing sports and announcing wrestling are very different. Jimmy Smith did a good job, but that's because he announced real fights and tried to announce wrestling in a real fight way."

https://www.f4wonline.com/podcasts/wrestling-observer-radio/wrestling-observer-radio-kevin-patrick-what-aew-could-learn-from-wwe-and-vice-versa-raw-report-more

Tonight, WWE is LIVE from New Orleans, Louisiana! The card includes:

• CM Punk and Cody Rhodes go face-to-face

• Seth “Freakin” Rollins kicks off Raw to address his future

• Damian Priest looks to deal with Drew McIntyre

• Ivy Nile takes on Valhalla

• Chad Gable fights the dominating Ivar

• The Miz takes on “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio

And more!

Show starts LIVE at 8pm EST | 5pm PST on USA. Check your local listings for more information.