00:00Good news for AEW and their TV rights!
00:03WWE backs Vince McMahon's motion in the Janelle Grant lawsuit, CM Punk's backstage
00:08attitude and more.
00:09I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:18As AEW approach their 5th anniversary with Double or Nothing at the end of the month,
00:21there's been a lot of chatter online about their profitability and the chances of them
00:26getting a new TV rights deal from Warner Bros. Discovery, who've been their TV partners
00:30since October 2019.
00:32WWE have got all of their TV rights deals wrapped up.
00:35Smackdown will be moving from Fox to USA Network, while NXT will be moving off USA Network to
00:40The CW, and Raw will be moving off cable entirely as it embarks on a new C with Netflix.
00:45It was also announced recently that WWE will remain on USA Network for the final few months
00:50of 2024 before it moves to Netflix in January of 2025.
00:54And these TV rights have come with big revenue increases.
00:57WWE's ticket sales and merch and all of that may be up, but their biggest driver of
01:01revenue will always be the TV deals.
01:04And that is why it's been such a big discussion for AEW.
01:08Ticket sales are not as strong for All Elite Wrestling as they were a couple of years ago.
01:12Interest in the product doesn't appear to be as high as it was a couple of years ago.
01:16But maybe none of that will matter if they get another five year deal with a big money increase.
01:22So I think it's fair to say that a lot rides on this TV deal.
01:26And Warner Bros. Discovery has been in media conversations a lot recently as it looks like
01:31they're set to lose their NBA coverage, which presents two worldviews.
01:35Number one, less money from advertisers and therefore less to spend on other projects.
01:40And two, more money saved and a bigger need to invest in a reliable TV show that constantly
01:46brings you ratings that put your channel in the top five for cable every Wednesday.
01:51Losing the NBA would also free up Thursdays, which Sean Ross Sapp on Fightful's Raw post
01:55show noted would be a desired day for AEW to move collision to.
02:00With Warner Bros. Discovery Upfronts taking place today, many expected this is where we
02:05will get the announcement of a new AEW TV deal.
02:08But Mike Johnson of PWInsider is reporting that while AEW will be mentioned as part of the
02:14Upfronts, we do not believe that the two sides have locked in a new media rights deal and
02:19do not expect there will be any sort of announcement in that regard.
02:23Not believing that the two sides have reached a deal doesn't sound like good news, however
02:27Fightful Select have added to PWInsider's report saying,
02:30we're told that the announcement of a new deal is expected to be kept very close to the
02:36vest and summer or fall could be the more likely announcement point.
02:40Which makes it sound like there is a deal in place, just not one they're ready to announce
02:45yet.
02:46But if there's no new deal to announce, why would AEW be mentioned in the Upfronts at all?
02:51Well, according to Fightful Select, there is a pilot for a new AEW related program with
02:56WBD that was set to be announced for social channels this week.
03:00Fightful Select note, this isn't going to be a reality TV show, and the rumors circulating
03:05online suggest this could be a new show hosted by RJ City and Renee Paquette.
03:10There could be another reason that WBD aren't announcing this AEW deal, and it all comes back
03:15to the streaming wars.
03:17And we'll have more on that in a bit, but first we want to show you the trailer for
03:20our latest WrestleTalk original, which looks at Roman Reigns' Universal Championship
03:24reign from start to finish in one of the longest videos we've ever made.
03:30Spanning nearly four years, Roman Reigns has been ruling as the head of the table.
03:35Fans were just so sick of being force-fed what they were supposed to like.
03:39Family, tradition, legacy, the responsibility of being champion.
03:43Those are the pillars of Reigns' new character.
03:46I think it might be the best storyline WWE have ever done.
03:50And if you compare how they handled Jay joining, and how they handled Jimmy, one feels significantly
03:56more anticlimactic than the other.
03:57I think there was a time where we all thought Sammy was the person.
04:02Cody brought in The Rock as a replacement for himself, who wrote that?
04:08Join me as I take a look at Roman Reigns as world champion and the bloodline from start
04:12to finish.
04:17Please do subscribe and enable notifications to know when that video goes live, which is
04:21this Saturday.
04:22And get a brew ready, because it clocks in at just under two hours.
04:27And please do give Pete and the rest of the team some cheat pops in the comments down below,
04:31because they have worked really, really hard on this video.
04:35Back to those AEW TV talks.
04:37One of the reasons a new AEW deal might not have been announced is because Warner Brothers'
04:41discovery want to put more focus on their Max streaming platform.
04:46And Fightful Select report that WBD have had interest in putting AEW's pay-per-views
04:51on Max for some time now, with proposals from WBD to AEW going back as far as last year.
05:00They add that when AEW first signed with Warner in 2019, Max was not a focus for WBD, but now
05:06it is, and almost every deal that WBD does is with Max in mind.
05:11And it was recently announced that Warner Brothers' discovery would be teaming with
05:15Disney to merge their Disney+, Hulu and Max platforms into one big streaming platform that
05:21presumably they're going to call Cable.
05:23So perhaps one of the reasons WBD have been keeping this AEW deal close to the vest, as
05:28Fightful Select put it, is because there needed to be a big Max integration, but they need to
05:33figure what Max looks like in this post-Disney partnership.
05:37Gear shifting now to the ongoing Vince McMahon lawsuit filed by Janelle Grant, which accused
05:41McMahon, John Laurinaitis and WWE of sex trafficking, sexual abuse and more.
05:46There has been a lot of back and forth since the case was made public back in January, with
05:50Laurinaitis' lawyer saying that he was also a victim of McMahon before siding with him
05:54in a fight against the lawsuit together.
05:57McMahon has reportedly hired the same PR firm that had Harvey Weinstein as a client to help
06:01rehabilitate his image, with Dave Meltzer noting on Wrestling Observer Radio that McMahon
06:05wants to get back into the business world, but perhaps not specifically the wrestling
06:10business world.
06:11In another new filing, McMahon's lawyers claim text messages from Grant to Vince show
06:15that the relationship, and the violent sexual nature of it, was consensual, but provided
06:19no screenshots and claimed that McMahon deleted all of the messages once the relationship ended.
06:25His team also filed a motion to move the Grant case out of public court and into
06:29private arbitration.
06:31Since the case was made public, WWE have distanced themselves from McMahon.
06:35He was removed from the WWE 2K24 game as a playable character, even blurred out in the
06:40cutscenes, and the company have made concerted efforts to put over that this is a new era
06:46of WWE, a post-Vince McMahon era.
06:49But they are named in the lawsuit, with Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon revealed to be two
06:54of the unnamed executives that Grant alleges knew of McMahon's actions.
06:59And now in a new filing, WWE have shown support in McMahon's motion to move the case to arbitration.
07:06The filing writes that WWE disputes Grant's allegations, and argues that the NDA she signed
07:11when her alleged affair with McMahon was broken off had a proviso that precludes Grant from
07:16taking this to court.
07:17Grant and her legal team had already dismissed this in their initial claim, citing the Speak-Out
07:22Act and the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protecting Act of 2000, which argue the NDA
07:28and its proviso are unenforceable.
07:30WWE's legal team, on the other hand, argue neither apply to their request for arbitration.
07:36If you have been affected by anything we've spoken about today, please do visit WrestleTalk.com
07:40forward slash support eachother for links for people to reach out to.
07:43We gear shift again now to talk about the return of CM Punk, and a new report from the Wrestling
07:48Observer that claims Punk will be making an in-ring return to WWE fairly soon.
07:52Punk made his return to WWE back in November after being fired from AEW in the summer following
07:58the Brawl Inn incident at their all-in Wembley Stadium show.
08:01He had a couple of matches for WWE in December, beating Dominic Mysterio on two house shows,
08:06and then got injured during the 2024 Men's Royal Rumble.
08:09He's continued his feud with Drew McIntyre, who is also out of action, and the current rumour
08:13is that Punk will be back in time for SummerSlam to potentially do that Drew match, and that
08:18could now all be potentially on the card.
08:21The Wrestling Observer notes that if Punk did indeed get surgery at the end of January,
08:25which is what was reported, then he'll be ready for wrestling again at the end of July
08:29or early August, just in time for SummerSlam.
08:32Punk left All Elite Wrestling with a lot of negativity and backstage scuttlebutt.
08:36From publicly calling out Hangman Page on an episode of Dynamite when Page wasn't
08:39even in the building, to the public bashing of the company at the All Out press conference,
08:44to the backstage fight with the Elite, banning people from being backstage at Collision and
08:49the real glass argument and scuffle with Jack Perry that led to his firing.
08:53He also spent the better part of a decade going scorched earth on WWE, blasting the company
08:59for firing him on his wedding day in 2014, and their relationship with Saudi Arabia, once
09:04even telling The Miz to go and suck a blood money covered duck.
09:08But from all accounts since his return, this is a different CM Punk to 2014, and a different
09:13CM Punk to the one in AEW.
09:16Shane Helms, a producer for WWE, recently told Behind the Turnbuckle that, in the last
09:20six months, Punk has been a pleasure to work with.
09:23He said, in terms of the feeling backstage, he's been a pleasure ever since he's come
09:27back and I never had any problems with him to begin with, so I'm not surprised he's
09:31been a pleasure with me, but I haven't heard of anything bad either.
09:35This backs up reports from the likes of Fightful Select who have noted that Punk has had no
09:38issues with WWE since his return, and has actually been very helpful backstage when visiting NXT.
09:44And speaking of NXT, we saw a title change there last night.
09:47Tony D'Angelo took on Charlie Dempsey for the Heritage Cup, and although the scores were
09:51tied for quite some time, it all came down to the final moments of the fifth round.
09:56And despite interference from returning no-quarter-catch members Damon Kemp and Miles Bourne, D'Angelo
10:01scored the final pinfall to win the cup.
10:04This is D'Angelo's third championship reign in NXT, having previously held the NXT Tag
10:08Team titles twice.
10:09Both he and Stax were rumoured to be called up to the main roster during the 2024 draft,
10:14but those plans were evidently changed.
10:16That isn't the only bit of news from D'Angelo and NXT, as his match with Dempsey nearly didn't
10:20go ahead.
10:21NXT General Manager AFA announced earlier in the show that D'Angelo would be fined $20,000
10:25for the scene that was caused at the end of last week's show, a fine that he quite
10:28easily paid in cash.
10:30With all these talks of CM Punk, why not check out how we would book him in the 2025 Men's
10:36Royal Rumble match, as we try and predict every entrant in that match way too far in advance.
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