Earlier this week, a clip of audio made the rounds online. It was purportedly of TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro, speaking to a University of Alabama class and answering a question about WWE. In the course of his answer, Shapiro claimed that TKO is in full control of WWE creative.
In our post-truth world, we didn’t want to spread something we didn’t have the resources to verify wasn’t modified, fake, or AI-generated. Especially since tadase had already dropped it our Feed for the community to talk
about…
But while we couldn’t be 100% sure, having listened to the recording, it certainly sounded legitimate. And coming as it did immediately following April 18-19’s WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas — which was criticized for having too many celebrities on it heading into the event, and afterwards blasted for being “soulless” because of its focus on advertising and sponsors — it certainly sounds plausible.
In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote about the recording. That not only gives yours truly some cover to blog about it on this site without hearing from Vox legal, but it also gives us some insight into how TKO’s creative control worked in practice since Ari Emanuel & team bought WWE the two-and-a-half years ago. At least depending on what merit you give to Meltzer and his sources, of course.
The idea that TKO could dictate creative to WWE is really a no-brainer. Parent companies can pretty much dictate whatever they want to their wholly-owned subsidiaries. But according to Meltzer, they only use it occasionally. The big issue is the occasions when Emanuel and Shapiro or their people choose to use it. Pat McAfee and Jelly Roll’s insertion in the WWE title program at this year’s ‘Mania is mentioned, but we’d also count the Travis Scott fiasco at WrestleMania 41 as another inopportune time TKO (or one of its Board members) flexed their muscle on WWE and Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
From the WON:
It was noted to us that in the end, Emanuel and Shapiro do have the final say in creative, but they almost never use it. It was said that in this situation, they used it at the most inopportune time. There was a ton of chaos regarding those on the wrestling side who didn’t want the McAfee and Jelly Roll involvement in a world title match they had been slowly building for months and how the celebrities took the focus away.
One person noted seeing the TKO Executives vs. WWE creative team battle coming for a year and said there was a lot of internal jockeying going on and that it was encouraged by Ari Emanuel and Shapiro.
It was noted to us that everyone acknowledges that at the end of the day, they have complete control, but they rarely use it and the complaint this year was that when they use it it’s at the worst time.
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