TKO Is Destroying WWE
By Donji Young
Let’s not dance around this one. Because what’s happening right now is exactly how you lose your audience. We’re talking about WWE. I’m going to say what a lot of wrestling fans are already thinking, TKO Group Holdings is slowly killing this company. Not financially, yet. But spiritually, creatively, culturally? Absolutely.
The moment TKO Group Holdings took control, WWE stopped feeling like a wrestling company and started feeling like a corporate asset. A product. A portfolio piece. A cash machine. The evidence is right in front of us. WrestleMania is back in Las Vegas for the second year in a row. Having WrestleMania in the same city, immediately after it was in that city, hasn’t been done since 1989 when Mania was held in Atlantic City again after doing so the year prior.
Last year made a lot of money so you decide to break a 36+ year tradition. Not because it was best for the fans. Not because it protected the prestige of the event. Not because it made WrestleMania feel special. Because it made money. Now ticket sales are down. Because fans can feel it. They can feel when the magic is being replaced by greed. They can feel when the business people start making wrestling decisions. Then came the news that WrestleMania is going overseas to Saudi Arabia.
The biggest WWE event of the year, the Super Bowl of the entire wrestling industry, is being exported overseas because somebody offered the biggest check. That tells you everything. WrestleMania is no longer sacred. It is no longer about tradition. It is no longer about the fans who built this company. It is about monetization.
Then you add the rumors that Triple H may be getting pushed out. The one man fans trusted to protect wrestling from becoming this exact thing. The one man who made the product feel important again. The one man who restored credibility to creativity. Now there is smoke around him. Interesting timing. Because if Triple H is being forced out, then let’s call this what it is, a corporate takeover of professional wrestling. A takeover by people who do not understand what made this business work in the first place.
TKO Group Holdings thinks wrestling fans are just customers. That we will consume whatever they sell us. That we will keep showing up no matter how much they commercialize the product. They are wrong. Wrestling fans are not loyal to corporations. We are loyal to the product. To the stories. To the moments. To the people who understand this business. If you strip that away, if you corporatize this thing to death, if you force out the wrestling minds, in favor of boardroom executives, then you will kill the very thing you paid billions to acquire.
No this is not an overreaction. Watching my favorite form of entertainment be hijacked by suits who see wrestling as numbers on a spreadsheet.
For that, TKO Group Holdings, you have committed a penalty.
Thus earning you…
A FLAG ON THE PLAY.