Whenever I go into a new month and start thinking of a new article, normally it takes me a while to decide what to write about. I was sure writing about the happenings of Wrestlemania would be a shoe-in as the main focus of the month. However in a turn I never expected to happen, it was announced that WWE has been sold… and that probably is worth discussing as well.
But yes, the Sports Entertainment Giant has been sold to Endeavor, who you may know as the owners of UFC. News broke the day after Wrestlemania Night 2 that Vince McMahon had agreed to a $21 Billion fee which, if completed will see the companies merge into a new publicly traded company (though what exactly this means for the product we don’t know as of this moment.) What we do know is that the hierarchy at the top of WWE is not set to change, meaning Nick Khan will remain CEO and Paul Levesque (Triple H) will remain Chief Content Officer.
When speaking of the deal, McMahon praised Ariel Emanuel (CEO of Endeavor) and Endeavor itself for how it nearly doubled UFC’s revenue over the last 7 years and how he believed that meant going with Endeavor would be the best decision for shareholders/other stakeholders in the company. Under the deal it is expected that WWE shareholders will own 49% of the company with Endeavor having a slight majority of owning 50%.
Talks of a WWE sale have been rumbling on in the background for several months now, in fact it’s the selling of the Company which brought Vince McMahon back into the fold, following his “retirement” in July of last year following the revelation that he’d made multiple payments of hush money to former WWE employees in relation to claims of sexual misconduct. A few months ago it was briefly rumored that the company had been sold to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund which given the companies already maligned history with Saudi Arabia, worried many fans, although that rumor was quickly debunked.
But the sale of the company aside, it would be wrong to not also mention the biggest event in the wrestling calendar of Wrestlemania. The 2 nights saw several highlights from the joyous moments of Sami Zayn finally getting one over on the Usos and dethroning them as Undisputed Tag Team Champions alongside best friend Kevin Owens, to the hard-hitting Triple Threat match on night 2 seeing Gunther continue his dominant reign as Intercontinental Champion through defeating long term rival Sheamus (again) as well as Drew McIntyre and making it seem even more insurmountable a task to dethrone The Ring General.
The show also saw now hall of famer, Rey Mysterio getting payback on his son Dominik by defeating him and dishing out some true parental discipline, some more absurd content in world-renowned rapper Snoop Dogg triumphing over The Miz in a match following Shane McMahon returning and almost immediately tearing his quad. And the main event of the show, despite all expectations going in, saw Cody Rhodes fail to “Finish the Story” and like many others before him fall to Roman Reigns on the biggest stage.
A setback almost fitting for Cody, as the next few months will again put to the test his father, Dusty Rhodes’ mindset and belief that, as is said in Cody’s theme song ‘Kingdom’ “Hard Times breed Better Men”. For, if not Cody, every day makes one wonder just who if anyone can be the one to defeat the Tribal Chief and rescue the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship from the “Island of Relevancy”.
