TKO Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro was interviewed this week on The Main Event with Andrew Marchand
, where he dropped this very interesting quote (transcription via Fightful) about WWE moving past the era of Vince McMahon’s premium live events (PLEs).Shapiro focuses on the launch of the ECW Wrestlepalooza PLE in September as an example of what TKO is looking for from Triple H and Nick Khan.
“And yet, they’re open to new ideas. They never seem exhausted. They’re ready to take on a new shot,
a new risk, a new opportunity. ‘Hey, Nick, let’s talk about launching a new event.’ Right now, a lot of our PLEs were created by Vince McMahon. We need to get in the business of taking that torch and moving past that, and Nick (Khan) and Triple H created Wrestlepalooza, which is the launch event for our new ESPN deal, which did incredibly well and may turn into a superfranchise. Not to mention from a merch standpoint, I don’t need to tell you, securing the I.P. rights and then selling merch at Wrestlepalooza, let’s just say it was a real winner…”
That sounds like we can expect some new names for WWE PLEs going forward, whether that’s by adding events to the schedule, or replacing/abandoning some of the crappier names used during the McMahon era.
What do you make of TKO’s vision for future WWE PLEs, Cagesiders? Is the name Wrestlepalooza really any better the typical WWE PLE name under Vince?
