The Royal Rumble took place last night, one of WWE's (World Wrestling Entertainment) marque events and kicks off the start of the most important season in WWE's year 'The Road To WrestleMania'.
This premium live event comes at a time of a mixed week for the company with the company under a cloud but the positives are that Netflix TV deal.
That $5 billion Netflix deal from January 2025 will see WWE partner with Netflix in selected global markets including the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, it see's all WWE content move from the WWE Network which will close as a result. Raw, SmackDown and NXT will all be exclusive to Netflix leaving TNT Sports (Formerly BT Sport) and leaving traditional pay television which the WWE were always on bar brief stints on Channel 4 and Channel 5.
The deal see's all live events such as WrestleMania and aforementioned Royal Rumble become exclusive to Netflix, with the WWE archive's future unclear. But we know that Netflix are looking to make a 'Drive To Survive' style documentary.
However by the end of the week, what should have been a build up and celebration for WWE was placed under a cloud with some very serious allegations against former WWE owner and chairman Vince McMahon.
McMahon had been accused of misconduct in the near past, which forced him to 'retire' from WWE only to change his mind and force his way back onto the board of WWE which he subsequently merged it with UFC owner Endeavour to create a new public company called TKO.
TKO run by CEO Ari Emmanuel the former lead at Endeavour and the big boss of the company, which had seen McMahon a minority shareholder but executive chairperson of the company, which following these allegations he's resigned. The threat of Slim Jim withdrawing sponsorship of the Rumble event may have forced McMahon's hand as TKO has much larger group of shareholders than WWE ever did. Slim Jim did appear in an advertisement at the Rumble with WWE Superstar Bianca Belair and LA Knight.
WWE is now McMahon free and had largely been free of his influence since the merger as Ari Emmanuel gave Paul 'Triple H' Levesque the creative reigns of WWE, with Nick Khan running to corporate side of the business with the TKO management.
The WWE will continue to build to its biggest show of the year WrestleMania but it will have to do it with the spectre of this scandal of it's former owner and chairman.
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