SEScoops

Author: BJ Bethel

  • Vince McMahon, WWE file Motions Ahead of Hearing in Janel Grant Case

    Vince McMahon, WWE file Motions Ahead of Hearing in Janel Grant Case

    Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment filed motions on Wednesday in the Janel Grant case ahead of a June 10 arbitration hearing.

    The filings were in support of moving Grant’s case, in which she accused McMahon of sexual assault and sex trafficking, to an arbiter per a non-disclosure agreement she signed.

    “She does not dispute that, according to the agreement, she read and understood its terms and her attorney explained them to her, or that she signed the Agreement in exchange for payment,” said WWE in its motion supporting arbitration. “Grant does not meaningfully dispute this. Indeed, she does not address the delegation of arbitrability to the arbitrator at all, other than to ask that, if the Court “refers the question of arbitrability to an arbitrator, it should refrain from finding that the NDA or its arbitration clause are valid on their face.”

    McMahon and WWE say the Speak Out Act and the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 aren’t applicable to Grant’s opposition to arbitration. The defendants say the EFAA is only applicable to disputes that had “not yet risen,” when they were signed, stating that Grant signed the agreement afterward.

    McMahon attorney Jessica T. Rosenberg filed an affidavit, which included an email exchange with Grant counsel asking for all of the materials that were examined by an expert witness ahead of the arbitration hearing.

    “We have reviewed your most recent filing and write to request ‘all materials ‘considered’ by Dr. Chitra Raghavan in forming the opinions reflected in her declaration,’” Rosenberg wrote. “Including, but not limited to, any notes from the purported 30 (h)ours of clinical interviews with plaintiff, results and notes associated with psychological testing performed, and the ‘approximately 81,000 texts, emails, videos, and photographs provided by Ms. Grant as well as those produced by the DOJ.’”

    Grant attorney Greg Jones declined in a reply email, stating discovery is currently stayed in the case and McMahon and WWE have opposed discovery for the hearing.

    “We will not be producing any materials considered by Dr. Raghavan for her declaration to the defendants at this time,” Jones replied. “As you know, defendants have opposed discovery in this case from the outset, including in the more narrow context of discovery related to the motion to compel arbitration proceedings. It is also notable that the vast majority of materials … should also be in the possession, custody and/or control of defendants. Finally, your reference to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 is inapposite and unavailing, given that discovery is currently stayed in the case.”

    Raghavan testimony was part of a motion in opposition to arbitration based on Grant’s mental health when she signed the agreement. Grant recently shared FBI letters identifying her as a possible crime victim in connection with the broader case.

    The arbitration hearing is scheduled for June 10 at Connecticut District Court. Brock Lesnar’s WWE future has also been linked to the lawsuit’s outcome.

  • Ted Turner, a better mogul from a better time, dead at 87

    Ted Turner, a better mogul from a better time, dead at 87

    Ted Turner, father of five, founder of Turner Networks, CNN, husband, ex-husband and lifelong partner of Jane Fonda, and lifelong pro wrestling fan, died at the age of 87 on Wednesday after a decade-long battle with Lewy Body Dementia.

    Turner’s last public appearance was in 2023 at his 85th birthday party. Despite their 2001 divorce, Turner and Fonda remained partners until his death. She later played a media and cable mogul on the HBO series The Newsroom.

    Turner was born in Cincinnati in 1938. His father, the owner of a large advertising business, moved the family to Georgia when Turner was 9 years old. Turner’s father died by suicide in 1963.

    His children, in a CNN documentary about their father, stated he was often cold and harsh, especially during holidays and get-togethers, caused by fallout from a difficult relationship with his parents growing up. They claimed Fonda’s influence as a warm and caring motherly figure and wife changed his family life around.

    A sale of his father’s billboard and advertising business funded the purchase of a UHF TV station in 1970. Originally airing reruns of movies and popular 50s and 60s TV shows and Warner Bros. Looney Tunes, the station, WJRJ-TV Ch. 17 was renamed WTCG for Turner Communications Group. It began airing Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Braves games in 1972. Turner would later purchase both teams.

    Turner petitioned the FCC to put WTCG on satellite in 1976. This led to the station becoming an early channel on cable systems around the country. He later bought the call letters for WTBS and changed the name to Turner Broadcasting System. By 1980, he started CNN, with the promise it would stay on the air “until the end of the world.”

    When Turner purchased the station, he also purchased the rights to air Georgia Championship Wrestling. A fan of the sport who recognized the popularity of pro wrestling in the Southeast, he later moved GCW to the Saturday 6:05 p.m. time slot, where it became a national staple for decades. Years later, GCW renamed the show World Championship Wrestling.

    In 1983, a storyline featuring Roddy Piper saving veteran announcer Gordon Solie launched the show and the network into national attention. Highlights of the angle aired on local news across the country and was featured on the Entertainment Tonight syndicated TV show. The incident is considered the greatest babyface turn in wrestling history and brought about some of the highest ratings for wrestling ever on television.

    GCW aired on WTBS until the infamous Black Saturday incident on July 14, 1984. After buying a controlling interest in the promotion from promoter Jim Barnett and brothers Jack and Gerry Briscoe, Vince McMahon began airing World Wrestling Federation content in the time slot.

    McMahon tried buying the GCW time slot prior to his purchase of the promotion, but was rejected by Turner. After the GCW purchase, McMahon attempted to assuage an angry Turner by promising to air original programming in the slot, but instead aired clips from house shows and other WWF programming instead.

    A ratings failure, angry fans began calling and writing the station wanting a return of the old product. Turner would later enter into agreements with Bill Watts to air Mid-South Wrestling and Ole Anderson, who began another Georgia wrestling territory, putting three wrestling promotions on the network at the same time. The Mid-South and Georgia programs were far more successful in the ratings than the WWF.

    Losing money, McMahon approached Barnett a year later, who brokered a deal with Jim Crockett Promotions, who ran Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, to buy the time slot. At the time, Crockett was working to unify the NWA in an attempt to compete with McMahon’s monopolization of the market.

    WTBS continued to grow through the 1980s as cable subscribers skyrocketed by 10s of millions per year. The growth was seen by Crockett Promotions, whose Saturday night two-hour show was one of the most popular in the country.

    Fans of the station and World Championship Wrestling crossed all walks of life. Following the death of President George H.W. Bush, an aide to former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms recalled an urgent call from the White House when the show was at its peak. He was urged to make sure then NWA World Champion Ric Flair was at the airport to greet George and Barbara Bush at the airport. The aide contacted David Crockett, whose simple response was, “He will be there.”

    The President was ushered off the airport tarmac to a waiting Nature Boy, who rode with the President and First Lady to the event, according to the aide. He spent the afternoon entertaining “mega fan” Barbara Bush. While in line for food at the event, one of the President’s aides asked him where the First Lady was. The President said, “She had run off with someone named the Nature Boy.”

    Crockett Promotions would later be purchased by Turner to continue airing on WTBS under the World Championship Wrestling name, which continued airing regularly on the station until 1995, when WCW Monday Nitro was launched on TNT as a direct competitor to the WWF.

    Turner began having less day-to-day interaction with WCW and Turner networks after the company was purchased by Time Warner in 1996. Originally a supporter of AOL’s merger with Time Warner in 2001, Turner soured on it quickly and once blasted AOL’s chairman during a board meeting, leading to his resignation.

    Ted Turner’s Life and Legacy

    Turner attended Brown University, where he was a member of the school sailing team. He was kicked out of the school for having a female member of the student body in his dorm room. The university later awarded him an honorary doctorate.

    A lifelong sailor, he competed in the Olympic trials and joined the U.S. Coast Guard. He was a member of various America’s Cup teams, including the winning 1977 squad, which earned him the cover photo in Sports Illustrated.

    As a sports-owner, obituaries credited him with saving professional sports in Atlanta and named him the primary influence in the city becoming one of America’s great metropolitan areas. His name hangs on a banner in the rafters of State Farm Arena.

    Turner created the Goodwill Games in the 1980s as an Olympic alternative, but were unsuccessful. The event was considered a bust by critics, despite Turner’s goal of using sports to create better diplomatic relations between countries on differing sides of the Cold War.

    An advocate against climate change, Turner pushed for the development of the Captain Planet cartoon to encourage kids to be environmentally friendly. He sponsored the United Nations Foundation with a $1 billion donation, a third of his $3 billion worth, in 1998. He encouraged the hiring of minorities in his companies, including MLB home run king Hank Aaron, who worked with the Atlanta Braves until his death.

    He co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Turner Endangered Species Fund, the Captain Planet Foundation, the Turner Foundation and worked to increase the U.S. bison population, combat global poverty and increase public interest in lowering the nuclear threat. He created TNT, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network, TBS and owned what would become the greatest library in visual media.

    He said selling Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner was a mistake he would always regret.

    He described his father as “far right,” which influenced him becoming a member of the Young Republicans. He later became a staunch ally of progressive and civil rights causes while spending much of his wealth on fighting poverty and global instability.

    He challenged Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch to a fist fight – multiple times – before the two made peace.

    He bought thousands of acres of ranch land in the plains to help grow the bison population, then founded a chain of restaurants based on bison meat.

    He described his experience with the U.S. Coast Guard as “pretty sweet” while receiving the U.S. Navy Memorial’s Lone Sailor Award.

    After hosting a Native American dance display at company headquarters in Atlanta, he remarked that the performance was beautiful but he was afraid he would get scalped.

    He once held presidential aspirations around 2016, but only for a few minutes. When he asked Fonda what she thought of him running for President, she said she would immediately leave him.

  • Janel Grant: Nick Khan Knew of McMahon Relationship, Lesnar Named

    Janel Grant: Nick Khan Knew of McMahon Relationship, Lesnar Named

    In a declaration filed in Connecticut District Court on Wednesday, Janel Grant alleged current World Wrestling Entertainment president and TKO board member Nick Khan knew of her relationship with Vince McMahon soon after he joined the company in August 2020.

    Grant sued Vince McMahon and WWE in January 2024, accusing McMahon of sexual assault and sex trafficking in a complaint that was amended in early 2025.

    Grant’s claim against Khan was one of several new allegations made in the case. She also laid out the timeline of when she signed the non-disclosure agreement that has been a centerpoint of the civil suit.

    Attorneys for McMahon and WWE want Grant to adhere to an arbitration hearing, which was a clause in the NDA. Grant’s attorneys say the clause violates federal law, among other issues.

    According to the 40-page declaration, filed as part of her opposition to a motion for arbitration, Grant was forced by McMahon to endure relationships with several members of WWE talent.

    Khan was mentioned previously in Grant’s original complaint, filed in January 2024, and her amended complaint last year, which alleged McMahon assigned Khan with designing an office for her and former WWE talent relations head John Laurinaitis. The designs allegedly allowed McMahon and Laurinaitis to enter Grant’s office with a passcode.

    Grant’s declaration alleged she was assaulted multiple times by Laurinaitis and McMahon. Laurinaitis, originally a defendant in the case, flipped last summer and provided evidence to the plaintiff and was expected to be a witness for Grant if the case goes to trial.

    The declaration included gruesome details concerning new and past allegations:

    • Former WWE executive Brad Blum became aware of the incident after meeting Grant.
    • McMahon and Blum were confronted about Grant by former WWE General Counsel Brad Nurse. Grant said McMahon had indicated Nurse was fired because of his knowledge of their relationship.
    • McMahon’s requests for Grant to engage Brock Lesnar and other WWE talent didn’t stop after Grant signed a non-disclosure agreement on Jan. 28, 2022, but continued.
    • Grant tried committing suicide after she was “raped” by McMahon and Laurinaitis.
    • The physical toll of the abuse against Grant led to her blacking out several times. She doesn’t recall her first alleged assault by McMahon, stating she blacked out.
    • McMahon became angry with Grant’s attorney several times when he began questioning aspects of the NDA. She said she faced “backlash” from Vince when she did share information with her attorney, which he told her not to do.
    • McMahon told Grant that Laurinaitis had previously signed an NDA due to an issue between him and a WWE talent. McMahon said Laurinaitis was demoted and the NDA cost WWE $1 million.
    • Lesnar had requested Grant to travel to Chicago to meet with him for a sexual encounter.
    • Lesnar became outraged when he learned Grant wasn’t working in the legal department (which she did previously), but working in talent relations. Grant said his outrage was due to previous issues he had with the department and Laurinaitis.
    • McMahon said that private videos and photos she had sent to him had likely been viewed by “thousands.”
    • Lesnar used the name “Polish Joe” as an alias in text messages to Grant.
    • McMahon’s efforts to connect Grant and Lesnar went from July 2021 to March 27, 2022, two months after she signed the NDA.

    Grant: McMahon said Nick Khan knew of relationship

    Khan was hired as WWE President and Chief Financial Officer in August 2020.

    “In hindsight, I view Nick’s arrival as the moment my life changed for the worse,” Grant said in the declaration. “My fears about reporting the abuse were realized when I learned from Vince that he put the company’s new president, essentially, his second in command, on notice of his ongoing sexual conduct with me.

    “Nick never asked me whether the relationship was consensual. Instead, Nick also waited for Vince to finish engaging sexually with me during meetings.”

    In November 2022, Grant said Nurse was fired. She said 72 hours after his termination, McMahon flew from Florida to Connecticut to force Grant into sex in McMahon’s office at WWE HQ. According to Grant, McMahon said the encounter in his office at the HQ was a “fantasy that became a reality.”

    Grant said WWE executive Brad Blum and Khan discussed the relationship with McMahon.

    “He said they expressed concern and one questioned whether I could be trusted,” Grant wrote. “Vince told me he provided them with assurances about my loyalty, character, that I would never do something to hurt WWE, and that I ‘would sooner jump off the balcony than hurt anyone.’ He told me that, with these assurances, Nick and Brad were ultimately supportive.”

    ‘Vince coerced me to sign an NDA under duress’

    Grant said McMahon regularly told her she was a threat to him and WWE, once telling her, “Unfortunately, you appear to have my company over a barrel.”

    She said she tried resigning several times. After a brief transfer to the XFL office, Grant said she tried to stay rather than transfer back to WWE. When notifying McMahon of her suicide attempt, Grant said he only pushed her to continue meeting with Laurinaitis.

    On Jan. 9, 2022, Grant said she met with McMahon at his apartment (they both lived in the same apartment building in Stamford). He again told Grant she was a threat to the company.

    “Vince said that he could lose his power, marriage, and home in a way that would be a public nightmare for both of us and require him to involve (Jerry) McDevitt,” Grant wrote. “Unless I came up with a solution for damage control.”

    Grant said McMahon had referenced McDevitt early in their relationship.

    “Vince mentioned that he had an attorney, Jerry McDevitt, on speed dial who was the best at making problems, including people who become problems, go away,” Grant wrote. “Vince told me he did not know the identity of the source leaking the information but expressed someone was trying to hurt him, which made me collateral damage.”

    Grant said she offered to resign “in response to a threat of imminent harm and in exchange for safety and protection.” She said Vince believed “signed paperwork” would satisfy his wife, Linda McMahon, and lead her to “call off a divorce.”

    Grant was concerned with the digital material she had sent McMahon and the people he had shared it with.

    “Vince would not answer who he shared my content with but rather said that thousands of men had probably seen it,” Grant wrote. “Vince said that the compromising pornographic material, and letters he requested, were locked in his personal safe.”

    Grant said McMahon set rules for her resignation, which included her staying away from the office and continuing to see Colker for medical care.

    Despite being a WWE employee, Grant said McMahon had circumvented human resources in her NDA and release from employment.

    “Vince replied that no one would see it because these agreements do not go through the legal department,” Grant wrote.

    McMahon allegedly told Grant that the paperwork would be handled by K&L Gates, McDevitt’s law firm, and it would be put in a “dusty drawer along with ‘the others.’”

    Grant said she couldn’t sleep during this period and had texted McMahon about suicidal thoughts and severe depression she suffered. When McMahon brought up paying her to sign an NDA, she said she was “disgusted and enraged.” She said she began developing rashes on her face and body due to the stress over the NDA.

    “I had no desire to sign paperwork or receive any money, so I would have said anything to get him to stop badgering me about it,” Grant wrote.

    Grant said her concerns with the NDA centered on not being able to share what she had been through with anyone except McMahon.

    She said she never met her attorney, who McMahon and McDevitt had called untrustworthy, which further isolated her.

    According to the declaration, McMahon moved Grant’s deadline to sign the NDA from Jan. 31 to Jan. 28. Grant said she continued to back out.

    “Vince reacted with fury,” Grant wrote. “We engaged in several calls during which he yelled at me and threatened that we would suffer serious harm if I did not sign the paperwork by 8 p.m., including public harm to him, his family and marriage, his empire, my reputation, and my safety. Life as I knew it would ‘blow up’ unless I signed the NDA, and I would be solely responsible for the consequences.”

    Grant said she signed the NDA on Jan. 28, just before 8 p.m., sending a copy of the signatory page to McMahon before sending it to her own attorney. She said she didn’t know which version of the NDA she signed.

    “At 8:42 p.m., my attorney emailed me explaining his concerns with the NDA and the negotiation process, including the fact that McDevitt had been unresponsive that day,” Grant wrote. “Per Vince’s instructions, I did not tell my attorney that I had already sent Vince a copy of the executed signature page.

    “At 9:09 p.m., I texted Vince that I was scared about everything and begged him to call me. On that call, I cried that my life was now in his hands and begged him to let me be small and live a quiet life. I admitted to Vince that I was having suicidal thoughts and wanted to jump off my balcony.”

    Grant said she received a $1 million installment payment on Feb. 4. She said the same day she later shared with McMahon she was having suicidal thoughts. She said a week after the NDA was signed, she was assaulted by McMahon at his condo, and was left retching on the floor.

    McMahon sent Grant a bouquet of flowers on Feb. 14, and encouraged her to meet with an unnamed WWE talent for a sexual encounter. Grant said she told Vince that she was confused about the scope of the NDA, particularly who she could talk to.

    SEScoops asked representatives for Grant, WWE, McMahon and Laurinaitis for comment about the allegations in the declaration. Parties hadn’t responded by Friday morning.

    Edward Brennan, an attorney for John Laurinaitis, sent a statement to Post Wrestling.

    “My client has no need to comment on this salacious affidavit. Anyone can make allegations. Whether those allegations can withstand the harsh sunlight of cross-examination is another matter entirely. I note that after two-plus years of litigation, Mr. Laurinaitis remains the only party exonerated by an independent investigation commissioned by the WWE Board of Directors to review these matters and the only person dismissed, with prejudice, from this lawsuit. Those facts speak louder than any allegations made to buttress a suspect claim.”

    SEScoops reached out to representatives for Grant and asked what Laurinaitis’s status was as a witness for the plaintiff in the case. A response hadn’t been sent when the article was published.

    According to Grant, McMahon had violated the NDA when he or WWE leaked her identity and details of their relationship to a member of the wrestling media. McMahon asserts Grant violated the NDA.

    The arbitration hearing in the case is scheduled for June 16.

  • Report: Ari Emanuel Suggested DOJ Was ‘Former Latham Lawyers’ to Vince McMahon

    Report: Ari Emanuel Suggested DOJ Was ‘Former Latham Lawyers’ to Vince McMahon

    A report published by the media website PUCK on Monday suggested Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor and World Wrestling Entertainment parent company TKO, may have used legal connections to help Vince McMahon when he was investigated by the Department of Justice.

    Eriq Gardner, in an article about the WWE shareholder lawsuit, wrote that Emanuel attempted to “reassure” McMahon in a voice memo to the former WWE owner in September 2022.

    Among the most striking artifacts: a September 2022 voice memo in which Ari tried to reassure McMahon by saying he’d spoken with his apparently well-connected lawyer at Latham & Watkins.

    “Just F.Y.I., everyone at the D.O.J. is former Latham lawyers,” said Ari, adding that an S.E.C. civil inquiry into the hush-money payments was a separate matter, but manageable.

    “Yes, we can indemnify you and we will,” Ari allegedly said. (At a December deposition, Ari said he couldn’t recall making the offer.)

    McMahon initially stepped down as WWE Chairman in June 2022 after the company began an investigation into allegations he had sexually assaulted and trafficked former employee Janel Grant, then retired the following month. According to a 2024 article by the Wall Street Journal, a federal criminal investigation into McMahon based on allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking began the same year.

    McMahon remained WWE’s largest stockholder after his resignation and engineered his return as executive chairman in January 2023. He later guided WWE in a sale to Endeavor that closed in September 2023, forming TKO Group Holdings.

    McMahon resigned again in January 2024 after a civil complaint was filed by Janel Grant in federal court against McMahon, WWE and former WWE executive John Laurinaitis. Laurinaitis was later dropped from the suit after agreeing to help Grant’s case.

    In February 2025, an attorney for McMahon said the federal criminal investigation ended without charges being filed.

    McMahon and WWE are defendants in a shareholder lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery, scheduled for June 8.

    An arbitration hearing in Grant’s federal civil case against McMahon and WWE is scheduled for June 10.

  • Janel Grant Shares FBI Letters Ahead of CT NDA Vote

    Janel Grant Shares FBI Letters Ahead of CT NDA Vote

    Janel Grant shared letters she received from the FBI on Tuesday along with a statement on NDA legislation in Connecticut.

    Grant, who is suing WWE and former chairman Vince McMahon on allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking, said she received the letters from May 2023 through mid-December 2025. One letter said the FBI was reaching out because the agency had identified her as the “possible victim of a crime.”

    The letters surface as Connecticut lawmakers weigh Senate Bill 355, legislation that would limit the use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of workplace sexual harassment and discrimination. Grant and her attorney Erica Nolan testified before the Connecticut Labor and Public Employees Committee in March in support of the bill.

    “Ahead of the vote in [Connecticut], I believe it’s important to share this letter in service of the broader conversation,” Grant said. “Multiple names appear in a grand jury subpoena in connection to settlement agreements related to allegations of sexual misconduct, including mine. This is why I received letters like this and I continued to receive them up until a few months ago.”

    Grant shared one letter on social media, dated May 23, 2023, along with FBI brochures on how to help victims of a crime and how to use the FBI’s victim notification system.

    Grant first spoke publicly about NDA reform at a Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence event in February. Her federal lawsuit against WWE and McMahon, originally filed in January 2024, remains active. A hearing to determine whether the case will move to arbitration or stay in federal court is scheduled for June 10, 2026.

  • The story of Jeremy Ganger, pro wrestler who saved dozens during Dayton mass shooting

    The story of Jeremy Ganger, pro wrestler who saved dozens during Dayton mass shooting

    Jeremy Ganger’s retirement match is scheduled for Saturday at Wrestling Revolver: Revolver Strong, at the Calumet Center in Dayton, Ohio.

    When Ganger walks to the ring, embedded in his leg is a piece of shrapnel. A reminder of the night his life and that of a city upended into a national tragedy.

    He received the injury when a gunman killed nine people and injured 27 others in Dayton’s Oregon District in 2019. Ganger was working as a bouncer at a local club called Ned Pepper’s when it occurred. Where he saved dozens of lives with his quick thinking and courageous actions.

    Police were getting ready to question him when an officer noticed he was bleeding from the leg. Ganger had been hit during the shooting, but was so busy rushing people to safety, he hadn’t noticed. He was taken to hospital.

    “I refuse to get it taken out,” Ganger said. “It’s my way of remembering the nine people we lost that night.”

    Ganger knew six of the nine who died. If he wasn’t there that night, it would have been dozens more.

    August 4, 2019

    After having dinner with a friend, Ganger went to work at Ned Pepper’s, checking ID’s outside the front door. An experienced bouncer, Ganger knew most of the customers and the people who frequented Dayton’s Oregon District. He recalled the area as one big family, one he’s always happy to visit.

    As he worked outside, he heard a gunshot down the street. Ganger, who grew up in rural Miami County, knew the sound of a rifle being fired.

    When the second shot fired, Ganger saw the shooter coming from an alley.

    “We saw people running from the Blind Bob’s area,” Ganger said. “I was yelling and freaking out like everyone else. I saw the shooter coming down the street and the muzzle of his gun lighting up.”

    Ganger said staffers at Ned Pepper’s, Blind Bob’s and other clubs in the district had active shooter training at the time. Ganger began yelling for people to run into the bar and began guiding them in as people began falling from the gunfire.

    Security camera video of the shooting showed Ganger guiding dozens of people in through the door of the club and clearing the patio as fast as he could. He kept standing outside the door as the gunman approached.

    The gunman was carrying a rifle with a 100-round drum magazine. He was wearing Kevlar and a tactical helmet. Law enforcement reports later stated he had substances in his system.

    Dozens of people began hiding behind the bar at the back of the building. Many of the male staffers dropped down to cover female staffers. Reports said as many as 300 people had fled into Ned Pepper’s for protection.

    The club had two doors at the entrance. Ganger locked and shut the first as the gunman approached.

    “My thought was to get everyone safe,” Ganger said. “And he wasn’t getting into the building no matter what.”

    The gunman paused, long enough for Dayton police officers to shoot and kill him. Officers wearing summer gear were armed only with handguns and had fired dozens of rounds at the gunman before he fell. The autopsy report said he was shot 30 times.

    Ganger, not knowing if the shooter was dead, grabbed his weapon as police entered and swept the building. People began running out of the other restaurants and clubs, tending to victims with towels, performing CPR and helping anyway they could.

    As Ganger saw people tending to the wounded, he glanced at the door he was standing in front of as he ushered dozens to safety. It was riddled with bullet holes.

    In less than 30 seconds, nine people were dead, 17 others had been shot and 10 more suffered injuries related to the shooting. Dayton police officers responded, killing the shooter, in just seconds. Among those on the scene that night were staffers from a local professional baseball team, the daughter of a U.S. Congressman and hundreds of others whose lives changed in less than half a minute.

    A wrestling fan turned wrestler

    Ganger began wrestling in the early 2000s. He worked local independents before meeting Cody Hawk, a long-time trainer and later owner of the Heartland Wrestling Association. The HWA was a developmental territory for both WCW and WWE during the Monday night era and was founded by Les Thatcher, considered by many to be the among the best trainers in the world.

    Thatcher sold the company to Hawk. Hawk trained former WWE, AEW and IWGP champion Jon Moxley and trained Ganger, who discovered there were advantages to having a third-shift job as a wrestler.

    ”My roommate at the time was Sami Callahan,” Ganger said. “I was working later and that allowed me to get a lot of one-on-one time with Cody in the daytime when it wasn’t busy. He took me under his wing.”

    Ohio’s competitive independent scene didn’t keep wrestlers from helping each other. Ganger said he was surprised at how veterans and more established stars were always generous with their time, showing him the ropes.

    He recalled Shaun Ricker, who wrestles as LA Knight in the WWE, being especially helpful, along with Nigel McGuinness and Moxley.

    “Those one-on-one sessions were amazing for me,” Ganger said.

    Ganger, a fan of Mick Foley as a kid, adopted the death match style after working with Alex Colon, a friend he would task with being his opponent in his retirement match. He was highly influenced by Callihan, his former roommate and friend, who will be at Saturday’s show. He considers Callihan to be family.

    ”Since he introduced me to wrestling, I really wanted (my final opponent) to be Sami,” Ganger said. “But wrestling Alex means so much.”

    After the shooting

    Most of the victims of the shooting were taken to Grandview Medical Center, blocks from the Oregon District. Many walked there.

    In his teens, Ganger was told by doctors that he had epilepsy. One of the triggers for seizures was stress. After arriving at the hospital, he had several seizures and was sedated by physicians. He slept for two days after the shooting.

    When he was released by doctors, he demanded to be taken to Ned Pepper’s before going home. He hobbled into the bar on crutches and was greeted by the staff, all of whom survived.

    The shooting sparked a decline in his mental health. Ganger couldn’t stand crowds. When he did venture out in public, he would see visions of the shooter in crowds. He was invited by All Elite Wrestling to be a special guest at its inaugural Double or Nothing pay-per-view, but the ordeal presented by his mental health kept him from attending.

    ”It changed my life dramatically,” Ganger said. “I had PTSD, I didn’t sleep well.”

    Tragedy sparks new mission, career

    Since the shooting, Ganger became a mental health counselor and a caseworker. He was diagnosed with superior survivor’s guilt. While Ganger saved dozens, the loss of those who were killed were too much for him to bear. One woman, who was killed in front of him on the patio of the bar, was staring at him the moment she was shot. They were friends.

    Ganger said his interactions were mixed. With the press, reporters were friendly and showed appreciation for his actions . He recalled one reporter telling him how grateful he was he lived in the same community as Ganger.

    Other interactions weren’t so friendly. He often received social media messages blaming him for not saving a relative or friend. People in public would criticize him for how he handled the situation.

    What kept his hopes up the most was messages he received from military members and law enforcement. Officers from Las Vegas and Virginia, who responded to mass shootings, praised Ganger for his quick thinking and bravery. Military members who had returned from deployment also thanked him for what he did for the city.

    In his darkest moments he became suicidal, dealing with PTSD, survivor’s guilt and depression, even as he took classes to become a counselor. What turned his life around was the birth of his 5-year-old daughter.

    ”My daughter, she’s 5 and she saved my life,” Ganger said. “I was told I could never have kids, and here I am, at 42 years old, having a daughter. She saved me.”

    ”You’ve done so much”

    Ganger kept receiving calls and voice mails from people saying they worked for NXT, World Wrestling Entertainment’s then developmental brand. Still wrestling, Ganger dismissed the calls as ribs from fellow wrestlers. He found out later one of the calls was from Paul Levesque.

    “Sami (Callihan) called me,” Ganger said. “He just says, ‘Pick up your phone. It’s real, dude.”

    In a better place mentally by that time, Ganger made the trip to Florida with a friend who was a nurse. After missing a chance to see AEW, he was determined to make it to NXT.

    ”When AEW contacted me to come to Chicago, it was too much for me, the crowd was too much for me,” Ganger said. “I felt horrible about it. I wish I could have went. I just wasn’t in the right mental state.”

    Over a couple days, Ganger was shown the WWE Performance Center.

    He walked backstage before a taping and saw Tommaso Ciampa talking with a group of wrestlers and staffers. Ciampa saw Ganger, walked up to him and grabbed him in a bear hug. He called Ganger, “Mr. Hero”, and then introduced him to everyone there.

    Ganger said Ciampa’s embrace and warm greeting was the highlight of his trip.

    ”That gentleman made me feel so awesome,” Ganger said.

    Ganger was interviewed with Paul Levesque, who ran NXT at the time. He was invited backstage to watch the show with NXT staffers Shawn Michaels, Jeremy Borash and Brian “Road Dogg” Armstrong.

    Levesque entered the ring before the taping was set to begin. He gave a speech while the screen showed news clips of the Oregon District shooting and interview footage of Ganger.

    Ganger, confused, turned to Borash, who told him, “We forgot to tell you, but you’re going to the ring.”

    Levesque introduced Ganger as “one of their own,” a professional wrestler. Ganger went down to the ring and climbed the steps to the apron. Levesque mentioned, “Hey, you even remembered to wipe your feet.”

    Ganger was presented with an NXT title belt. Video of the presentation was put on WWE’s website and made news across the country.

    Before the presentation ended, Levesque grabbed Ganger for a private conversation.

    “It was touching,” Ganger said. “He told me he loved me and respected me. It was a private moment.”

    Most of the NXT staffers didn’t know why Ganger was at the event until the presentation. When he reached the back, he was immediately grabbed by Michaels. who

    Michaels took him outside with a rosary in his hand and grabbed Ganger’s and began praying for him.

    Weeks later, Mick Foley was on tour and was scheduled for an appearance at a Dayton-area comedy club. Ganger received an invite from Foley, one of his biggest inspirations. Foley wanted to talk to him personally.

    ”He told me, what you did that night was tremendous not just for the people there but for the wrestling world,” Ganger said. “We get so much bad advertising because people think all wrestlers are scumbags. You showed we are people. And we can do tremendous things. You’ve done so much.”

    Ganger has revisited the shooting regularly. After years of dealing with the after effects he said his one regret was not reaching out to someone sooner, “Or just talked to someone.”

    He tried handling the emotions and the mental toll like traditional men were taught – by bottling it up. Later, he was overwhelmed with thoughts of suicide. He said that was a mistake. Ganger said anyone who suffers a traumatic event should seek help or counseling immediately.

    ”I needed help a lot sooner than later,” Ganger said. “I wish I had talked about what was going on, but I was a traditional man and we are taught to keep our feelings to ourselves. I wouldn’t have been suicidal, I wouldn’t have talked about taking my own life. I wish I had asked for help sooner.”

    Ganger said one source of help was surprising – the wrestling business. Whether it was his friends he wrestled with for 20 years in Ohio or stars in other states and on national TV, the business he gave his blood and body to gave back when he needed it most.

  • Security Concerns Could Become a Contract Issue, Rep Says

    Security Concerns Could Become a Contract Issue, Rep Says

    Due to numerous security issues between wrestlers and fans at WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday, security staffing could become something wrestlers start negotiating in contracts, one representative said.

    Video of World Wrestling Entertainment Wrestler CM Punk confronting a fan after Sunday’s second day went viral. Punk was upset at a fan who was recording A.J. Lee, Punk’s wife, and Bayley, both wrestlers in WWE’s women’s division.

    Punk’s confrontation with the fan was one of numerous incidents that took place over the weekend. Multiple wrestlers had issues with fans.

    One person told SEScoops the location of the hotel in relation to Allegiant Stadium, where the event was held, was a problem, as well as a lack of staff.

    “It could be something where possibly getting private security added is covered in future contracts,” one representative told SEScoops.

    Fightful Select anonymously quoted numerous WWE wrestlers on the lack of security. Fans ignored boundaries at meet and greets and at other areas during the event. One talent said the skyrocketing ticket prices may play a role in fans becoming more aggressive.

    Drew McIntyre, Sean Waltman, Booker T, Royce Keys were among those who had issues with fans. Damien Priest reportedly confronted a fan who wasn’t respecting women’s wrestlers.

  • Wrestling Grifters Called Out: \’Get A Job\’ Editorial

    When I hear the term grifting, I think of the Chicago Cubs.

    In 1983, Wrigley Field had no lights and all baseball games were played in the daytime. To this day, many Cubs fans believe this is how God intended baseball to be played. Former Cubs manager Lee Elia couldn\’t have disagreed with the fans, or God, more.

    Weekday Cubs fans were vocal, and after a couple of innings very drunk and very vocal. After hearing thousands of fans trash his players for nine innings on a July afternoon, Elia\’s post-game press conference consisted of flames firing into the skies above the Friendly Confines. Some of the smoke trails are still floating over Lake Michigan.

    \”Eighty-five percent of the world is f***ing working, the other 15 come out here,\” Elia foamed in a rant that included at least three F-bombs and variations of the term, \”Get a job.\”

    A similar version of Elia\’s comments enters my brain repeatedly when I read social media. Maybe it\’s reels pounded into my eyes by Facebook and YouTube, maybe it\’s Twitter\’s distasteful \”For You\” tab, designed to hammer the web\’s foremost stupidity into your frontal lobe.

    Sure, there\’s plenty of amateur hot-takers posting away inanity, but the real idiots are the hustlers, trolls and grifters. And pro wrestling is loaded with them.

    I started to write this column several times over the last year, but in one of the few instances of this ever happening to me, I wasn\’t sure I could apply the proper amount of vehemence and volatility required. Grifting and hustling have existed as long as humans have, but this is how politicians and top corporate people now operate, let alone pro wrestling drones.

    The grifters and hustlers are the worst of us. It doesn\’t matter what the subject is, our new 10-second attention spans and the lack of economically viable journalism has them delivering sound bites like some magician pulling the world\’s ugliest rabbit out of a hat repeatedly until the next ad times out or the next commercial break.

    I could go into details and talk about snake-oil salesmen, hucksters, corner crooks, tabloids, the rabble rousers and other losers. They dress it up in other terms, like \”Skip Bayless\” and \”influencers,\” but it\’s the same thing – people starved for attention who need a real job.

    In pro wrestling it\’s usually idiotic commentary or some version of \”content creation,\” whether it\’s taking valuable time at a press conference to ask a wrestler their favorite Waffle House meal, or going apoplectic over the wording of a Tweet. The most destructive are the former pros and their abundance of podcasts.

    Pro wrestling grifters come in many forms – there\’s the former ECW guys complaining about the lack of storytelling and psychology or the former booker and company heads who ran companies into the ground and pontificate on how everything that followed them is worse. Most admit to not even watching the modern product, but who needs to actually see something to form an opinion?

    Pro wrestling is rife with grifting because it comes naturally with the sport. Pro wrestling is based on a con and was a quasi-legal enterprise for a century. Many of the grifters preferred it that way. Guaranteed contracts and health care are great, but it was better when sex with the underage was just frowned upon and considered a perk in the 80s. Not to mention good times like having six hours to get to the next town and only gasoline and blow to get you there.

    Audiences were cheated out of real fights for fixed ones, thus started the con. The biggest con of all was on the workers. Ask the wrestlers who died early for the so-called \’easy money.\’ Or had to survive Verne Gagne\’s grueling camps.

    Maybe it annoys me because I know people who are trying to find work, dying to find it, and when they do, regularly do it for 60 to 80 hours a week. Then we have this new class of lowlife who gets off on not doing anything, and if they make a few pennies they see everyone else as suckers.

    Social media has made \”hustle\” some kind of word to be proud of when it\’s nothing of the sort. There\’s a duality to the word people don\’t understand, it was that way with Charlie Hustle himself, Pete Rose, who annoyed veteran baseball players as an over-hustling fraud. It fits well with his post-baseball life of a lifetime suspension due to gambling, and his fortuitous timing of books and media appearances that made him short-term cash and killed his credibility.

    You can go on Reddit, Twitter or TikTok and find them all over. Bruce Prichard created this new species of wrestling grifter when he lied so mendaciously and ridiculously on his podcast, leaving no trace of self-respect behind, enough to regain favor with Vince McMahon and get his old job back. Since then, retired wrestlers and bookers stomp over each other to throw away what little credibility they have for engagement or one last check.

    The targets are frequent and simple, since this entire approach is mirrored off right-wing media, particularly Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh pioneered much of this with his daily three-hour whine session about the press. I listened to Limbaugh back then as a dumb kid, and decided I was going to do something about it – I became a reporter. It didn\’t take long working at a paper to realize Limbaugh was drastically full of it, and he couldn\’t survive an eight-hour day as a journalist, even if it were typing in sports scores.

    Translate that to wrestling, who is it the grifters aim at most? Dave Meltzer. Even if another reporter is targeted, it always comes back to Dave because he brings engagement. There\’s even a formula to it.

    Reporter spends hours, days, weeks, months on a story.

    Grifter reads the story and decides how it can attack it in bad faith in hopes of some sort of engagement

    Grifter works in angry keywords like \”flippy\” as much as possible.

    Grifter logs out, checks Cameo account hoping there\’s $10 for a sandwich.

    Grifters can\’t do what Meltzer does or what an average reporter does. It\’s too hard. Eighty hours a week, every week for years on end? Forget it.

    AEW is a frequent target as well. This shows how dirty the hustle is, considering what a second major company has done for wrestlers and salaries, but the hustlers don\’t care. Tony Khan confuses them. He\’s a billionaire, his dad owns teams in the world\’s two biggest sports leagues, why is he into pro wrestling?

    In the past, anyone starting a company would go to some former booker wiseman to get them off the ground, and then find themselves out of business a couple years later. Khan has a passion for wrestling in and of itself, and that\’s what divides contemporary wrestlers and wrestling companies from past ones. It\’s still not what drives them to bash AEW and New Japan constantly – that\’s because courting favor with WWE is Job No. 1 if you have no job – but it\’s still part of the grifter mindset.

    Look at the number of these people who ran TNA. The miracle of TNA isn\’t it lasting 20 years, it\’s that it survived the idiots who ran it. With the exception of the Jarretts and Jim Cornette, not one cared that the company genuinely succeeded.

    The rules of diminishing returns apply to grifting. Prichard got his job back. At the same time, his rant against producers of Netflix\’s Mr. McMahon documentary was turned into a cultural \”SpongeBob moment\” that will last forever. And there\’s only so much groveling and self-flagellation one can do at the altar of WWE before even they get sick of it.

    Bischoff did get a turn back with WWE in the late 2010s, but that lasted a couple months. He had some guest shots on AEW, then quickly burned those bridges when he went full Prichard and started spouting off at Meltzer and Tony Khan on a daily basis.

    All of this gets to the real question – why won\’t any of these people get a job? I\’m not sure. NFL players, into the 1970s, often had full-time jobs in the offseason. This trend continued for referees until the last several years. Much of the talent from Crockett found success in real estate or their own businesses, killing the trope that all retired wrestlers end up on the indies forever.

    It doesn\’t make money, it does kill credibility. But some people are lazy, some people don\’t want to work or they weren\’t good at this stuff to begin with. Eighty-five percent of us are working. The other 15 percent? Find them on the Conrad Thompson network.

  • WBD/Netflix deal has AEW remaining on HBO Max through 2027/2028 (Report)

    All-Elite Wrestling will continue streaming on HBO Max through the end of its current deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, according to a report by the Hollywood Reporter.

    Tony Maglio reported on Tuesday that AEW\’s rights would shift to Discovery Networks, which will be the home of TNT and TBS, which broadcast AEW shows Dynamite and Collision. He cited a 519-page filing by Netflix with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    THR said AEW, if it were to stay with Discovery after its current contract, would move to a new Discovery app that has been planned since a split between Warner Bros. streaming and movie studios and its cable channels was announced. This was reported first by Dave Meltzer and The Wrestling Observer several weeks ago.

    WBD announced Discovery would build a TNT Sports streaming app once the spin-off is completed later this year.

    AEW signed a three-year deal with a fourth-year option in 2024. AEW would remain on HBO Max through the end of 2027 or 2028, depending on whether Netflix/WBD picks up its option.

    \”There’s even the possibility of a nonexclusive arrangement in which both HBO Max and Turner Sports stream AEW events — perhaps the former gets the PLEs and latter the episodic TV shows,\” the article said.

    Netflix announced it would keep HBO Max as a standalone service if it completes its merger with WBD. Industry sources have told SEScoops keeping the apps separate would help in potential regulatory fights and could be seen as beneficial for Netflix as it goes head-to-head with YouTube.

    The THR article confirmed WBD owns a small position in AEW at less than 10 percent.

    THR said it\’s likely WWE and TKO have a non-compete clause with Netflix regarding other professional wrestling companies on the streamer. If HBO Max were absorbed by Netflix, that would likely force AEW and its PLEs to a Discovery streaming app.

    \”(Should) Netflix integrate HBO Max into its own service, it may not even be able to carry AEW programming,\” the article said. \”Though unconfirmed, it is believed WWE’s parent company TKO incorporated a noncompete clause in its deal with Netflix, a relic of the old days. Because everything in professional wrestling is some sort of relic of the old days.\”

    Paramount, which competed with Netflix to buy WBD, has filed at least one lawsuit in the wake of the merger. President Donald Trump has also weighed in on the deal, stating he would cast the deciding vote on who would own the company.

    Any merger or purchase of WBD will be met with heavy opposition by states and unions as well as Washington DC regulators. Democrats in the Senate have voiced opposition to Paramount due to the tight relationship between Trump, owner David Ellison and comments made by both about the merger. Larry Ellison, David Ellison\’s father, is a staunch ally of Trump and helped fund the 2020 stolen election claim.

    Without any legal challenges, a merger of WBD with Netflix is expected to take 12 to 18 months. Various companies have voiced antitrust concerns and the public has expressed concerns about media mergers. Trump has said he\’s concerned with media mergers at some locals, stating he opposed a proposed merger of local broadcast companies Nexstar and Tegna, which would require the Federal Communications Commission to lift the 38 percent cap on U.S. market ownership.

  • William Regal Continues to Teach the Ultimate Lesson (Editorial)

    William Regal, the former WCW and WWE star, went to Twitter on Sunday with an x-ray of his neck and a warning – that time in the ring ends, but the pain stays, a lesson he’s tried teaching for two decades

    Pictures are worth a thousand words, and a Twitter post by William Regal on Sunday, which included a black and white x-ray photo of his fused neck, seemed to be inspired by thousands of emotions held by the veteran trainer and former wrestler.

    His post was a plea, based on regret, pain, and a long-lived life in a business with a history of putting the next match ahead of health or injury.

    A rare poster on social media, Regal said the fusion in his x-ray, which included four screws into the back vertebrae, was the result of the two times he had broken his neck – once after a German suplex in 1993 and again in 1997 after a car accident and how he, “stupidly never told anyone.”

    Fans weren’t sure whether Regal saw something during the All-Elite Wrestling pay-per-view the night before, or maybe it was something he’s been seeing during his work at WWE, he gave a caustic and vehement warning about what these moves can do to you, even if you’re trained and seasoned pro.

    Whether he was aiming it at AEW or WWE, most importantly he was right.

    Regal’s impassioned plea was simple – don’t take bumps on your neck and head.

    “After (Mitsuharu) Misawa-san passed, from his neck problems, I thought it would stop this nonsense, but it’s gotten worse,” Regal wrote.

    I stay off here but was alerted to something to day that has alarmed me. I don’t read any comments so don’t waste your time trying to argue or justify your very wrong opinions on this. I broke my neck twice: 9/93 in the ring and a car wreck in ‘97 and stupidly never told anyone. And I… pic.twitter.com/BHxtPm6rjM

    — William Regal (@RealKingRegal) December 28, 2025

    He brought up Bryan Danielson’s current health issues, which forced him into retirement after his AEW World title run last year.

    This isn’t the first time Regal has pleaded for wrestlers to take their health more seriously. In 2000, Regal was out of a job. He had what was essentially a try-out match for World Wrestling Entertainment at the 2000 Brian Pillman Memorial Show against Chris Benoit, a match that was among the best in the world that year and the best match I’ve seen in person.

    While doing interviews during and after his appearance, Regal spoke at length about his issues with addiction to pain medication while battling the numerous injuries he suffered.

    Regal, while being interviewed by Shawn Stidham of The Wrestling Guys the week after the show, warned wrestlers that many of the prescription “non-addictive pain-killers” weren’t non-addictive, and specifically called out OxyContin. This wasn’t a regular occurrence on the radio or on TV in 2000, even as the fever of the opioid crisis was already spreading across the Midwest and other areas and pharmaceutical companies continued to market it as safe.

    In other words: Regal is intelligent, eloquent with a rare level of introspection and obvservation. He knows what he’s talking about – he did in 2000; he did on Sunday.

    Some AEW fans went after Regal as a hypocrite after his tweet, some ridiculously citing neck injuries suffered while doing other styles of moves. This was bad faith and stupid, especially in a post about safety which every fan should easily agree on. Especially from someone like Regal who has close friends and people he’s mentored in both companies.

    Maybe they felt he was going after AEW, and there would be reason for that. AEW’s style is more high-risk and involves more head-drop moves than WWE. WWE has slowly worked back to a more physical style in recent years in response, but AEW’s style is closer to New Japan, the WCW cruiserweight style and the more physical indie styles of the 2000s and 2010s.

    The fan response was bad, but much worse was reading how far the mob is from understanding the physicality of the sport.

    Fans don’t understand the training and discipline needed to compete at even the lower levels. Nor do they understand the commitment, training and athletic ability needed to wrestle in a contemporary style on a regular basis. To borrow a line from the internet- go touch grass – or better yet, go run on it and do some pushups.

    Both companies are doing more now for wrestler safety in the past, but they could do better. Neck fusion surgeries aren’t nearly as common as they were in the 2000s, but they haven’t gone away. AEW is without Will Ospreay and WWE is without Kevin Owens – two of the biggest stars in the business.

    And it’s not just the protection, but the addition. Using more head-drop moves as setup or transition moves adds more risk. Yes, the finisher of yesterday always turns into the setup move of tomorrow, but the numbers game is as big of risk as the dreaded ‘one move gone wrong.’ CTE isn’t caused by concussions or even a serious concussion, it’s caused by repeated blows to the head.

    Some wrestlers have adjusted, adjusting how they land or how moves are performed so they aren’t dropped directly on their head or neck. This has been more visible the last few years, especially in neck-exposed suplex moves.

    And while wrestlers and fans can do better, fans are a major problem. They want to see the spectacle of the next crazy move. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I loved the WCW Cruiserweight style growing up. It led me to watch All Japan, New Japan and lucha, but only a few years into it, my favorites were lining up for neck fusion surgeries and battling concussions, multiple blown knees and long-term physical problems. Some of these wrestlers would become my friends. I thrilled at hearing the stories behind those matches, and got nauseous hearing how many beers it took to get to sleep later that night, if they remembered the match at all.

    All styles have their risks. I believe it was Jack Evans who said on social media he stayed healthier wrestling a more contemporary, aerial style than locking up. There isn’t a perfect answer, and anything demanding physical, athletic performance is always going to be dangerous.

    But minimizing those risks – like eliminating neck bumps – is something that should have been embedded in wrestling culture years ago. People wonder just how much Kenny Omega or Kazuchika Okada have left, but seem to forget the top rope dragon suplex in their first meeting. Omega re-posted Regal’s tweet in support.

    In the end, the wrestlers are the ones who have to decide what they’re willing to risk. To Regal, he’s preaching himself as a cautionary tale, that the pop you get after a 20 minute match doesn’t mean much 20 years later when your quality of life is shot. But like any other athlete, whether it’s football, basketball, UFC or pro wrestling, there’s a drive to go out and do the best you can do. It’s competitive nature.

    It isn’t bookers and executive who drive the business, but wrestlers. And that drive is what makes the business great. Every athletic activity and every sport will leave its mark on you. Talk to any high school football player. But Regal’s words should be heeded.

  • WBD Update: Saudis Put Up $24B; Senators Align Against Paramount, AEW?

    After Paramount announced it was pursuing a 12-digit hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery on Monday, the only certainty surrounding the future of the company is more uncertainty.

    Three days after Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed a merger with Netflix in an $80 billion deal, Paramount countered with a hostile bid over $100 billion that hit $30 per share – over two dollars more than the Netflix bid.

    But both deals are fraught with regulatory obstacles, politicians on both sides decrying the deal economically and politically and an almost certain massive regulatory challenge.

    As far as All-Elite Wrestling, a source speaking to SEScoops said AEW would likely land on linear channel spin-off Discovery Networks. According to Zaslav and various reports, Netflix plans to keep HBO Max as a separate streaming service.

    The spin-off, which is expected to be completed in the spring, would be followed by development of a TNT Sports app. AEW’s status with Paramount would be less certain.

    Paramount/Skydance CEO David Ellison has said it plans to shut down HBO Max and place its content on the Paramount Plus app. The company’s offer is for both its streaming and studio assets as well as its linear TV deals. AEW will start the second year of its three-year deal with WBD in January, with a fourth-year option for 2028.

    Where AEW could end up could be moot if the expected lawsuits and regulatory investigations take place. The lawsuits alone could take years, maybe beyond AEW’s contract with WBD if it gets ugly. Paramount is expected to push for the SEC to stop a merger with Netflix based on anti-trust issues. Paramount also has its own regulatory issues and mounting concerns over the debt the company has collected in just months of ownership by Ellison. If WBD and Paramount combine, their linear TV reach would have more market share than Disney, the current No. 1.

    While WBD, Hollywood and regulators sort out the Netflix merger agreement and Paramount’s hostile bid, a possible Netflix/Comcast combo deal to make the merger more regulator-friendly is a possibility.

    One source said Comcast was the best culture fit for WBD given Zaslav’s previous NBC stint.The source said theme parks are a factor that has been ignored by the trade publications and business press. Last week, Bloomberg reported that Universal Theme Parks was considering licensing DC characters from Warner Bros. for new rides. Marvel characters have been featured at the parks for years. Comcast owns Universal Theme Parks while DC is owned by WBD.

    Comcast dropped out of the bidding for WBD late last week. The company was offering stock as part of a merger, but was out-bid by Netflix, who took on loans for its final bid, and Paramount, which partnered with several hedge funds and sovereign funds from the Saudis, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.

    One constant said by multiple sources is not to expect any resolution to WBD ownership anytime soon, unless something remarkable were to happen. Any final decision could take years and the end result could be a situation where “everyone gets a little bit of something,” where multiple companies are involved in order to get the states, unions, companies and regulators on the same page.

    According to filings from Paramount with the SEC, the WBD and Netflix merger would take a year to 18 months to be completed, that’s without considering the dozens of lawsuits from unions, viewers, regulators, state attorney generals, not to mention a public that’s tired of corporate media merger fever while subscription prices rise and more ads are shoved onto streaming programs. Paramount said it could complete a merger in 12 months, which it offered as a selling point to WBD shareholders.

    The Saudi Arabian PIF, as well as fund with Qatar and Abu Dhabi, totaled $24 billion of the hostile offer made to WBD shareholders on Monday. In comparison, the Ellisons have put up $12 billion. Apollo Group Management, Citi and Bank of America have contributed $54 billion, according to Alex Sherman of CNBC.

    Sara Fischer of Axios said the Saudi and Middle East portion of the bid was left out of Paramount’s press releases today. When asked about what voting power the three Middle East funds would have, Ellison and other execs at Paramount haven’t given an answer. According to Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg, a WBD souce said they expected the Saudis to own the entire company by the time the process was over, if it were to go through.

    Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times reported China’s Tencent fund, as well as money from Jared Kushner’s Affinity fund. Film critic John Rocha gave rundown of the problematic history of the backers helping Paramount, and it wasn’t pretty.

    The involvement of three Middle Eastern government funds and a controversial Chinese fund may have helped Paramount with a better bid, but it’s certain to complicate the regulatory approval path.Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senator Elizabeth Warren both voiced concerns with the hostile bid, stating they both had major regulatory concerns. Warren said she was concerned over the Ellisons\’ marketing of having Trump in their quarter and willing to change CNN to get the bid his approval. President Trump was asked about the hostile bid on Monday; he said he had no opinion of Paramount as a company. Trump has expressed issues and concerns with the Netflix merger as bad for the market.

    The Ellisons ‘trump’ card in its negotiation (which is now on offer seven) with WBD has been President Trump, who is a friend of Larry Ellison, father of Paramount President David Ellison, the second richest man alive. That could have taken a hit over the weekend after Majorie Taylor Greene’s interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday. Greene, who has criticized the administration over the Jeffrey Epstein story. Trump blasted CBS News over the interview on Truth Social, just weeks after Ellison placed Bari Weiss of The Free Press in charge of the network’s news and a couple months after Paramount paid a $16 million “pre-court” settlement with the Trump administration.

    The Paramount board was meeting late on Monday to discuss whether it should offer another hostile bid by Tuesday morning. Ellison had said they had another bid to offer after Monday’s bid.Netflix has said it plans to keep HBO Max as a standalone service, according to Zaslav. It has also said it would continue to keep WBD\’s headlong focus on making movies (WBD was the No. 1 movie studio in terms of box office this year). This hasn’t assuaged fears from critics of Netflix, who have noted that trusting the company that has put many theaters out of business with the future of cinema is a hard buy.

  • Vince McMahon\’s Doctor Asks Court to Seal 700 pages of Grant Documents

    Dr. Carlon Colker of Peak Wellness asked Connecticut Superior Court to seal hundreds of documents in Grant’s bill of discovery suit against him and his company

    Attorneys for Dr. Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness asked the Connecticut Superior Court on Monday to seal around 700 pages of documents containing receipts and medical records belonging to Janel Grant.

    Grant is suing Colker and Peak Wellness in a bill of discovery case. Attorneys for Grant allege Colker and Peak Wellness refused to provide her medical records and receipts for treatment when asked during discovery for Grant’s federal suit against Vince McMahon.

    A defamation suit was filed by Colker in federal court against Grant attorney Ann Callis. At one point, attorneys for Colker had added Grant’s medical records to the case docket without them being sealed or redacted. The court later took the filings down.

    In an amended complaint filed earlier this year, Grant claimed McMahon sexually assaulted and sex trafficked her while she worked at WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment is also a defendant in the suit. Grant filed suit against McMahon in early 2024.

    Grant’s health records, and the payment receipts for her treatment, have been at the heart of her bill of discovery suit against Colker as well as her lawsuit against McMahon. According to Grant’s federal complaint, Colker had treated Grant without telling her what pharmaceuticals or treatments he was using. Grant claimed McMahon had paid for all of her treatments except for after she had been fired.

    Grant alleges an employee of Peak Wellness assaulted her, along with McMahon, while in the building. During the assault, McMahon is alleged to have performed a bodily function on Grant. In an earlier filing, attorneys for Colker and Peak Wellness said the employee no longer worked at the company. The employee is unnamed in the bill of discovery suit and the federal civil suit.

    Colker also filed an opposition to a compliance motion by Grant on Monday. Grant had asked the Grant for the compliance order on Nov. 7, claiming Colker had been refusing to hand over items as part of discovery in the case.

    “Defendants have produced just two records—an “audit log” for Petitioner’s electronic medical file and a single text message,” the Nov. 7 motion said.

    Attorneys for Colker objected to the motion, calling it overreach by the plaintiff and called it an “open-ended fishing expedition.”

    “Defendants have produced hundreds of pages of responsive documents and despite that fact, plaintiff seeks more – more than a limited bill of discovery necessitates,” the motion said.

    The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 8.

  • Netflix Wins Bidding Battle For Exclusive Negotiations With Warner Bros., But Major Hurdles Remain

    Netflix emerged as the winner over Paramount and Comcast in the bidding contest for Warner Bros. Discovery. The streamer is now in an exclusive negotiation period with the storied studio.

    After a two-week bidding war, Netflix emerged as the winner on Thursday over Paramount and Comcast for Warner Bros. Discovery, the home of the HBO Max streaming service and All-Elite Wrestling, while concerns grow over media consolidation and monopolization.

    According to several reports, Netflix’s final offer hit the $30 per share target WBD CEO David Zaslav was wanting in a buyer.

    Winning the bid, Netflix will enter an exclusive negotiating period with WBD to iron out details of a sale, but that process is far from over.

    Paramount sent two letters over the past two days to Trump administration officials and WBD board members with anti-trust concerns over a Netflix purchase of WBD, saying it would be a step toward a monopoly among streamers. Paramount also had concerns with Comcast buying WBD because of its MS Now (formerly MSNBC) cable news channel and WBD having CNN, even though both NBC Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery were planning to spin-off their cable channels to separate cable network companies.

    David Ellison, Paramount’s owner, has repeatedly pushed a so-called regulatory advantage the company would have over any other potential buyer due to the Ellisons close relationship with the Trump administration. Ellison’s father Larry is an ally of Trump and a major campaign donor. Paramount’s sale to Ellison’s Skydance company was completed after Ellison encouraged Paramount to pay a $16 million “settlement” to Trump over a CBS News interview with Kamala Harris that Trump has falsely claimed was edited in a deceptive manner.

    Netflix’s offer was mostly cash but included some loans, according to Bloomberg and Lightshed Management Partners.

    Sources told SEScoops the sale is far from over. There would likely be dozens of court challenges, not just at the federal level, but by other states who have concerns over the sale as well as unions and others in the media industry.

    Netflix, which said it wasn’t interested in the “merger game” just a couple months ago, became an interested buyer due to new strategic changes at YouTube, one source told SEScoops. While Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streamers command billions of minutes in viewing, YouTube remains by far the dominant streamer in the world, eating up the vast majority of viewing by streaming app watchers.

    According to Lightshed Partners, Paramount saw WBD as an opportunity to step up against Netflix and Prime, adding the power of two major studios together, two massive film and TV histories and collections. Comcast saw a WBD deal as a step to get into a better competitive posture against Disney.

    Paramount’s own bid became more of a regulatory hassle after partnering with the Apollo Group private equity firm and several Mid Eastern dictatorship sovereign investment funds like the Saudi PIF.

    While international companies have bought larger and larger chunks of major American businesses, it’s unclear how regulators and and business leaders would react to Middle Eastern governments being major owners of a massive American media company during a time of mergers and buyouts.

    Paramount’s other possible concern is Apollo Group, which is already a local broadcast owner and bought Cox Media Group in 2019, The company owns several large local CBS affiliates, including WSB-TV in Atlanta, one of the largest local TV stations and ABC affiliates in the country. Apollo was also had interest in purchasing CNN from WBD late last year before the company announced its streaming and network split.

    Comcast was said to have made a mostly stock offer to WBD and would have been closer to a merger than an overall purchase.

    Comcast was interested in purchasing WBD’s streaming and movie studio assets. Netflix was interested in WBD’s massive library dating back a century. Paramount wanted to purchase both WBD’s streaming and network assets.

    Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw said a caveat in the Netflix deal would allow WBD to continue driving films to movie theaters, a model Netflix execs recently called out-dated, despite WBD raking in billions in 2025 with one of the most successful film slates in years.

    How a Netflix-owned WBD would affect AEW remains up in the air. Netflix isn’t interested in the cable networks TNT and TBS, which air AEW television. It’s most likely Netflix would absorb HBO Max into the Netflix streaming app, but how that would affect AEW TV also remains unclear as AEW has been a part of HBO Max for the last year and recently allowing pay-per-view purchased for AEW, something the company developed specifically for AEW.

    Comcast announced on Thursday it would complete its spin-off of Versant in January. WBD was expected to complete its spin-off of Warner Bros. Streaming and Studios from Discovery Networks by spring next year.

    Discovery Networks is expected to continue building its own TNT Sports app. While Zaslav has said sports has continued to be a down performer for HBO Max, the company has plans to put a sports DTC app available after WBD finished its split in spring 2026.

    The earliest any merger would be completed, would be late 2026, according to the trade publication Puck.

  • Warner Bros. Discovery Receives Second-Round Bids From Paramount, Comcast, Netflix

    Paramount makes $25 per share offer with cash from the Saudis, Qatar, Abu Dhabi; Netflix and Comcast still in play

    Warner Bros. Discovery received second bids from Paramount, Comcast and Netflix on Monday as the potential buyers compete for the studio which owns TBS, TNT, HBO Max and hosts All-Elite Wrestling.

    Paramount continued to bid for both the studio and streaming division and the cable division, which are expected to spin into separate companies early in 2026. Netflix and Comcast have bid only for the studios and streaming.

    According to reports from several reporters at Bloomberg, Paramount’s second bid was all-cash and included funding from three Middle Eastern countries – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

    https://media.sescoops.com/uploads/2025/12/\"Warner
    WBD

    Variety reported the three countries involved in Paramount’s all-cash bid on Nov. 16. Paramount, in a statement to the trade publication, said the report was “categorically inaccurate.”

    Charles Gasparino of the New York Post reported private equity fund Apollo Group was also part of Paramount’s “improved” second competitive bid of $25 per share.

    Netflix and Comcast also made second bids, putting the numbers together during the Thanksgiving weekend.

    Netflix’s second offer was mostly cash, according to Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg. The company would take a loan to complete its purchase. Bloomberg had no report of what consisted of Comcast’s offer.

    Reports from earlier this year said WBD CEO David Zaslav expected at least $70 billion in a potential purchase. Paramount had made at least three all-cash attempts to buy WBD before the company opened to a bidding process last month. One attempt included Zaslav staying as co-chair.

    Ellison has been heavily criticized since taking over Paramount. The company paid $16 million to the Trump administration in a settlement and added Bari Weiss, a center-right columnist, as the head of CBS News. Ellison’s father Larry, owner of Oracle, is a friend of President Trump, which is one reason analysts believe Paramount is the favorite in the competition because of a friendlier regulatory road. Sources have told SEScoops that Comcast would be the likely winner in a bid.

    Ellison came under fire for saying he would merge the HBO Max streaming app under Paramount Plus. Paramount also lost Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan, but the famed screenwriter will helm a Paramount project based on the Call of Duty video game.

    Some analysts have criticized Ellison for the debt the company has compiled and his plan to make Paramount Plus into a competitor on the level of Netflix and Amazon Prime. Ellison paid $8 billion for Paramount then made a deal with TKO for all rights to Ultimate Fighting Championship for seven years for $7.7 billion.

    Several Hollywood unions have opposed a Warner Bros. merger, especially when companies continue to shed jobs. Paramount has laid off 14,000 workers this year.

    Both Ellisons were at a White House dinner two weeks ago which hosted Saudi Arabian Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which also included other tech billionaires Tim Cook of Apple and Michael Dell. U.S. companies continue to court money from Saudi Arabia despite the U.S. intelligence reports that Salman had knowledge of the killing of American resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

    Director James Cameron heavily criticized Netflix’s interest in WBD due to statements from company president Ted Sarandos that it couldn’t make “cinema work” in a short-lived attempt at putting its films in theaters.

    According to Deadline, the bids are binding and WBD could split-off to negotiate with one suitor over the other two.

    A WBD merger with another major media company would greatly affect the pro wrestling television landscape, which is already in tumult due to the fall-off of cable TV and changes in ratings from Nielsen.

    Pro wrestling viewership has consistently rated lower since Nielsen switched to its Big Panel Plus system last fall. Streaming numbers will be added in January 2026. WWE PLE viewership has been down on its first shows on the new ESPN Unlimited app, which was just released at the beginning of football season and is still gaining a subscriber base.

    World Wrestling Entertainment is coming to the end of its first year of a five-year deal with Netflix for Raw. UFC will debut this month on Paramount Plus, while WWE Smackdown airs on USA Network and NXT on CW. ESPN is airing WWE PPVs while Peacock has a deal for quarterly Saturday Night’s Main Event shows. AEW is at the end of the first year of its three-year deal with WBD to air on TNT, TBS and HBO Max. WBD has an option for a fourth year.

    If a sale occurs, the buyer would be WBD’s fourth owner in the last decade.

  • Vince McMahon Doctor Refusing to Provide Discovery Items, According to Grant Motion

    Attorneys for Janel Grant filed a motion to order compliance on Friday in her bill of discovery suit against Dr. Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness, arguing the defendants in the case are stalling and the court should compel Colker to testify in court about the delay.

    Grant alleged Colker provided only two items as part of discovery of her civil suit, which was ordered by the court in August. Grant said Colker and Peak Wellness haven’t taken the “reasonable steps required by the bill of discovery order and the Connecticut Practice Book.”

    “Instead, they claim (Grant’s) are not relevant – in defendants\’ sole, subjective opinion – and therefore they do not have to follow standard discovery procedures.”

    Grant has requested the payment records for treatment and her medical records be released by Colker and Peak Wellness. Grant has said Vince McMahon paid for her treatment with Colker and the practice, and failed twice last year to provide items for discovery in her federal civil suit against Vince McMahon and WWE for sex assault, sex trafficking and other complaints.

    “To date, Dr. Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness have engaged in persistent stalling tactics that have only prolonged this deeply painful process for Ms. Grant,” representatives for Grant told SEScoops in a statement. “We have respectfully asked the court to intervene and compel compliance with our bill of discovery request once and for all.”

    Details in the motion allege data showed Colker had accessed Grant’s medical records on July 27, 2023, over a year after she had ended treatment at Peak Wellness and a few days after a federal search warrant had been executed on McMahon.

    Grant’s federal lawsuit against McMahon and WWE was stayed on July 1 while the judge in the case decides whether to allow discovery ahead of a motion for arbitration hearing.

  • Vince McMahon Doctor Withdraws Opposition Motion in Janel Grant Lawsuit

    Attorneys for Dr. Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness withdrew a motion asking to re-open or clarify a “judgment without trial” in Janel Grant’s lawsuit in Connecticut Superior Court.

    Colker was the physician for Vince McMahon. Colker and Peak Wellness are accused of withholding discovery in Grant’s lawsuit against Vince McMahon in federal court. An employee of Peak Wellness was accused of assaulting Grant on company grounds. Colker is accused of refusing to provide medical records and refusing to tell Grant what she was being treated with.

    Colker’s attorney Frank Silvestri withdrew his motion to clarify the court’s decision during a livestream hearing on Monday.

    Judge David Bothwell ordered the judgement without trial on Aug. 12. Colker filed the motion to re-open judgement on Sept. 10. A judgement without trial would allow for a decision to be rendered before the case makes the courtroom.

    Grant’s federal lawsuit against McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment was stayed on July 1 while the court decides whether to allow discovery prior to an arbitration motion hearing. McMahon and WWE claim the non-disclosure agreement Grant signed after she was fired from WWE would require her to fight her complaint against the company and McMahon in front of an arbitrator and not in court.

  • Warner Bros. Discovery: Potential Bidders Emerge for 2026 Split

    Warner Bros. Discovery announced in a press release on Tuesday it is entertaining bidders for both the entire company and for the two separate companies that would exist following its planned split in 2026. While WBD is hoping to ignite an expensive bidding war for the company, some of its potential suitors have signaled they may not be interested.

    The press release followed a Wall Street Journal report last month that Paramount made a cash offer to WBD ahead of its spin-off. The $20 per share offer was rebuffed by WBD CEO David Zaslav.

    \”While Warner Bros. Discovery continues to advance its previously announced separation of Warner Bros. and Discovery Global, its Board of Directors today announced it has initiated a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value, in light of unsolicited interest the company has received from multiple parties for both the entire company and Warner Bros,\” the release said.

    PUCK previously reported WBD was hoping for a stock sale price exponentially higher than the Paramount offer.

    Matthew Belloni reported last week Paramount was pushing ahead with a purchase of WBD, noted by the hiring of Makan Delrahim as its chief legal officer on Oct. 6. Delrahim served in the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice in the Bush administration in the 2000s. He became a lobbyist after, working for Comcast, UFC, Google, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Johnson and Johnson. Belloni said his hiring was to pave way for a purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery and to fight off other potential buyers and anti-trust concerns by the Department of Justice.

    While leading the Department of Justice\’s anti-trust division during the first Trump administration, he filed a lawsuit to stop a merger of Time Warner with AT&T, but lost in federal court. He allowed the sale of FOX to Disney.

    Delrahim, in several interviews, said monopolies were only illegal if they acted in a monopolistic manner. He also held the position that mergers could lead to more competition in the market, an argument he\’ll likely make to the DOJ and the Securities and Exchange Commission as Paramount tries to position itself with purchases to compete as a major streamer alongside Netflix and Amazon Prime.

    Paramount immediately made overtures for WBD following its merger with Skydance, owned by Larry and David Ellison. Paramount signed a new deal with UFC for seven years and $7.7 billion shortly after the purchase, worth nearly the same price paid for Paramount.

    Netflix and Amazon may sit out a potential bidding war for WBD. Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters told Variety earlier this month that \”big mergers don\’t have an amazing track record,\” citing other Time Warner mergers with AT&T and AOL. But CNBC reported on Tuesday that Netflix was in play for WBD, citing unnamed sources.

    Amazon\’s recent purchase of MGM and the Bond franchise has left it less willing to investigate a WBD buy, but Prime has expressed interest in WBD before, particularly its TNT Sports production studio. Amazon Prime\’s production of NFL and MLB games has been heavily criticized since the network began airing football on Thursday nights as part of a deal with the league. After its debt-heavy acquisition of MGM, Amazon would likely be uninterested in paying billions for WBD.

    Apple executive Eddy Cue said on Belloni\’s podcast that the company isn\’t likely or looking to make significant purchases.

    Comcast, which is in the middle of its own split, would be a favored spot by Zaslav and WBD board chair John Malone due to their positioning in a new company, one source told SEScoops. A Comcast and WBD merger would only occur after Comcast finishes spinning off its cable networks under the Versant name and WBD spins off its digital assets. It would also leave Zaslav and Malone in top positions, which would be highly unlikely if Paramount purchases. Belloni reported that Zaslav and Malone would have to maneuver the WBD board if Paramount continues as a highly motivated and potentially hostile player in a bidding war. Comcast would also have to improve its heavily leveraged position – it needs more money.

    Sony studios has showed interest in a WBD purchase or merger, which SEScoops reported in June. The two companies worked together before and planned a joint studio complex in Nevada, but the plan fell apart after the state legislature failed to provide tax incentives. The positioning of more heavy buyers would make a Sony purchase difficult.

    WBD\’s spin-off is expected to finish by mid-2026.

  • Mark Shapiro, TKO and the Profits of Rage

    Mark Shapiro, president and COO of TKO Group Holdings, treated his employees, shareholders and fans of his company\’s two sports leagues – World Wrestling Entertainment and Ultimate Fighting Championship – to rare candor and a refreshing lack of euphemism during a teleconference with Goldman Sachs on Wednesday.

    CEOs, executives, hedge fund pirates and private equity mutineers rarely find agreement with the truth, but Shapiro was in friendly company, speaking to likeminded peers at Goldman Sachs and those listening, just weeks after TKO secured multi-billion dollar deals with Paramount and ESPN for UFC\’s entire rights package and for WWE\’s PLEs, which will be part of ESPN\’s recently released direct-to-consumer app.

    Shapiro\’s voice was bolstered with pride when he talked about plans for UFC Fight Night, and weekly WWE shows, to demand site fees from cities, like the company does for major shows.

    \”If you\’re a St. Louis or a Des Moines and we\’ve sold out both arenas and it\’s broke records, you\’re going to have to pay for us to come back to your town,\” Shapiro said. \”Or else we are taking it to another city.\”

    Sports leagues started doing this years ago, offering Super Bowls, March Madness, All-Star Weekends to the highest bidders. UFC and WWE followed. If you wanted a numbered PPV in your town, you had to get out the public money. If you wanted Royal Rumble or WrestleMania, some local \”sports and event\” organization signs away taxpayer dollars in hopes the cost of the site fees is offset by the fans coming to town and boosting the local economy.

    Since TKO bought WWE, ticket prices exploded, along with site fees. If the local municipality is paying for the event, at least the local fans should get some of that money back in cheaper tickets, but that\’s not the case. Thanks to new algorithms pushing the costs into the stratosphere, it has never been more expensive to attend anything. Even Vince McMahon, who was cutthroat as one could get, has nothing on Shapiro. TKO\’s president told Goldman listeners McMahon kept ticket prices low in order to allow working and middle-class fans the ability to afford attending shows. Shapiro said that thinking is gone in the TKO-Nick Khan-Triple H era. Ticket prices are as high as they can place them.

    TKO\’s stock price nearly hit $200 a share today, doubling in around a year. They have more deals than a corner used car lot and billions in new streaming contracts across the industry in their two-front effort to monopolize the wrestling business and to imitate the NFL\’s domination across media.

    What more could TKO and Shapiro could ask for? Who cares.

    Getting information on site fees paid by cities to leagues and companies is nearly impossible. The companies cite court precedent depending on the state, with a persistent argument that the public knowing how their tax dollars are being paid to TKO, NFL or other leagues puts those billion-dollar, bigger-than-God leagues and companies at a competitive disadvantage.

    Shapiro said the new deals would likely lead to more money for some of TKO\’s top stars. Shapiro mentioned Jon Jones and Conor McGregor, fighters who had received more than the usual take in UFC due to their drawing power. This would be the case for other fighters and wrestlers who showed their star-worthiness. Who knows if anything were shared if All-Elite Wrestling wasn\’t around. The remarks didn\’t sound promising for the two rosters overall.

    For fans, it\’s become much more expensive. Paramount will likely go through several rounds of price hikes. Coming out of the Skydance merger, new Paramount head David Ellison spent as much on UFC has he did on buying the network. That doesn\’t include other deals with studios, Bari Weiss\’s The Free Press which is rumored to occur soon and Activision for the rights for films based on the Call of Duty video games. There\’s also the $16 million the company paid to President Donald Trump over an edited CBS interview with Kamala Harris that wasn\’t actually edited and never went to court.

    Watching Raw means a Netflix subscription. Watching NXT and Smackdown requires a cable provider CW and USA Network or a TV antenna for CW. ESPN DTC is $29.99 a month unless your cable provider has an early deal through carriage fees to allow subscribers to have access. One Twitter post estimated a monthly cost of $94 a month for WWE fans who want access to all its shows and products.

    Nothing TKO is doing is anything that wasn\’t done by companies, hedge funds or private equity firms years prior. General Electric and its legendary head Jack Welch pioneered this through the 80s and 90s through his retirement.

    The idea is to not worry about making your customers happy (the fans), but making shareholders happy ($198 at close). During the 1970s, economist Milton Friedman popularized shareholder maximization theory, otherwise known as shareholder primacy. Friedman said companies had only one fiduciary duty – to maximize return to shareholders.

    Telling the people who owned stock in the company that corporate focus should no longer be on customers, but on making them richer, unsurprisingly made the theory popular on Wall Street and in boardrooms. Within a few years, shareholder maximization was all the rage.

    What\’s this mean for WWE fans? Prepare to ride the snake. While McMahon always considered himself of a corporate raider in the guise of a Donald Trump or Gordon Gekko, he was the sole owner of his company and was by far the deciding shareholder when the company went public in the early 2000s. TKO has no such limitations in mind. McMahon would push deals or massive profit, even at the risk of not capably satisfying their partners (think Fox on Smackdown).

    Maybe TKO\’s stock rollercoaster will keep WWE and UFC honest about putting out a compelling product. Maybe that\’s a good enough trade for having to pick and choose what providers you subscribe because that WWE Network and Peacock pricing is long gone. Maybe it won\’t. The reality is UFC and WWE\’s fandom is at the whim of Friedman.

    How should that make fans feel? When General Electric giant Jack Welch retired, he gave an interview reflecting on his decision to push shareholder primacy all those years. In 2009, he called Friedman\’s theory, \”the dumbest idea in the world.\”

  • Judge Orders Document Handover in Janel Grant Case Against Vince McMahon’s Doctor, Denies Pre-Trial Depositions

    Connecticut Superior Court Judge David Bothwell ordered Dr. Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness to hand over requested documents to attorneys for Janel Grant on Monday during a hearing between parties to discuss discovery ahead of the civil trial between the two parties.

    Bothwell also denied a proposed schedule from Grant\’s attorneys that would have allowed them to depose Peak Wellness employees ahead of the trial.

    Grant has said that Colker and his company, Peak Wellness, have failed to follow through on handing over required documents that were part of discovery in Grant\’s federal lawsuit against Vince McMahon, as well as the bill of discovery complaint she filed against Colker and Peak Wellness last year.

    Colker, a celebrity physician who treated McMahon, also treated Grant by McMahon\’s request when she was still employed with World Wrestling Entertainment. Grant has claimed Colker often gave her prescriptions and other treatments without telling her what those treatments and prescriptions were. In her civil complaint against McMahon, Grant claims she was assaulted by McMahon and a Peak Wellness employee while at the building that included McMahon performing a bodily function on her.

    Colker and Peak Wellness attorney Frank Silvestri said the doctor and his company had handed over all of its medical and financial records regarding Grant after \”the beginning of proceedings.\”

    \”We didn\’t have a chance to discuss all the records that are being sought,\” Silvestri said. \”But there are certainly a number of them that seem to be totally unrelated to what they need to bring a lawsuit against these defendants.\”

    Bothwell said he would allow objections from Colker and Peak Wellness on what documents they were handing over, but ordered all medical records in the case to be made available to Grant.

    Grant attorney Julie Pinette said many of the medical records and financial records that Colker and Peak Wellness handed over appeared to be inaccurate or incomplete. She said some of the financial records and receipts didn\’t line up with receipts and some asserted Grant had paid for treatments that had been paid for by McMahon. Silvestri maintained that they had already handled over all of her documents.

    Silvestri said he believed the issues with the billing records were due to a misunderstanding.

    \”I\’m a new judge so maybe I\’m coming in here with some fantasy thoughts, but I\’m hoping we can work this out as amicably as we can,\” Bothwell said.

    Bothwell denied Grant\’s request for depositions ahead of the trial. He said unless someone wasn\’t potentially available due to illness or potential death, that would make the matter different but there was no reason to conduct depositions at this point.

    \”You have concerns, but those haven\’t been spelled out to me,\” Bothwell said. \”Is your concern that this evidence may not be available during the ordinary course of litigation? What\’s the concern that those people wouldn\’t be available?\”

    Silvestri said the records turned over to Grant\’s attorneys included PDFs with metadata that included who was reading the documents and when they were read. Pinette said this wasn\’t the case with the information she received.

    \”As far as the suggestion that we have metadata, I don\’t know how we are supposed to prove that unless you want to look at my computer,\” Pinette said. \”There are numerous inconsistencies including there were some things listed as paid for by Miss Grant when it clearly wasn\’t according to the defendants. This is information that concerns the treatment of Miss Grant by the defendants so I would like to stress to the court the importance of her own treatment and the medical records.\”

  • More Vince McMahon Crash Details, Reputation as a Dangerous Driver

    Former World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon\’s reputation as a driver was horrible among employees, according to stories over the years from former WWE employees.

    McMahon, 79, was in a crash with two other vehicles on July 24, according to an incident report from Connecticut State Police. McMahon was said to be driving 80-to-85 mph according to a witness who saw the crash. He was cited for Reckless Driving and Following Too Closely Resulting in an Accident on July 24 while on Route 15, also known as the Merritt Parkway, which runs along the Gold Coast in Connecticut. This is according to an incident report filed with the Connecticut State Police.

    Connecticut State Police say McMahon, driving a 2024 Bentley Continental GT, struck the rear-end of Barbara Doran, who was driving a 400 series late-model BMW. McMahon\’s car, after striking the rear of Doran\’s, hit a wooden guardrail separating the northbound lane from the south. Debris from the collision hit a third driver, a Dylan Zimmerman. All three vehicles were towed following the incident.

    According to a witness at the scene, McMahon\’s Bentley was traveling at a high rate of speed and weaving in and out of traffic. The witness said an unmarked CSP car turned on its lights and attempted to pull McMahon over before he struck the rear end of the BMW. Another witness said CSP was going to give McMahon a speeding infraction, but cited him for Reckless Driving.

    According to Connecticut General Statute, \”The operation of a motor vehicle upon any such highway, road or parking area for ten cars or more at a rate of speed greater than eighty-five miles per hour shall constitute a violation of the provisions of this section.\”

    Vince McMahon on the Road

    McMahon was notorious for dangerous driving in his days with WWE.

    Former WWE referee Mike Chioda said on his podcast in 2021 that McMahon once drove the WWE ring truck while intoxicated and in a snow storm, doing donuts.

    Former WWE employee Jim Cornette said McMahon, outraged over a re-directed flight, recounted McMahon\’s horrible driving in a podcast five-years ago. Cornette said McMahon drove with a car full of top WWE staffers, hitting 100 MPH in some areas while driving in a rainstorm.

    Cornette said he was traveling with McMahon once when he was pulled over by what he believed was a younger, rookie cop. Outraged at getting a ticket and pulled over, McMahon took off from the side of the road, kicking up gravel on the road side at the officer.

    Jim Ross wrote in his book, \”Slobberknocker,\” he was a passenger of McMahon\’s when they were leaving a Raw show in Columbus Ohio and were pulled over by an Ohio State Trooper. According to Ross, McMahon tried playing up his own name and Ross himself, \”Good Ol\’ J.R.\” as stars to get out of a speeding ticket.

    The Ohio State Trooper replied, \”I guess this makes me the Big Boss Man,\” before handing McMahon a ticket.

    McMahon is scheduled to appear in Stamford Superior Court on Aug. 26.

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    https://media.sescoops.com/uploads/2025/08/\"https://media.sescoops.com/uploads/2025/08/\"

  • Hulk Hogan: Before Trump, The Hulkster was Wrestling\’s Ultimate Politician

    Dwayne \”The Rock\” Johnson, prior to his part in the unharmonious end of the DC film franchise, was asked about the difficulties of navigating Hollywood while keeping his A-list star status. 

    Johnson said navigating Hollywood was easy after his years in the highly-political backstage of World Wrestling Entertainment. Thus preparing him for his entrance into movies. Maybe that\’s why so many from Glenn \”Kane\” Jacobs to Jesse \”The Body\” Ventura found themselves in office after their careers in wrestling ended.

    Johnson gave passing consideration to a presidential run a couple years ago. When he was at his early peak as a wrestler he appeared at the 2000 Republican National Convention. Despite the bonafides, Johnson isn\’t in the same realm of politician of Hulk Hogan.

    Hogan, who died from a cardiac arrest on Thursday at age 71, exploded as a pop culture figure in 1983 after his appearance in Rocky III. He led the World Wrestling Federation to a national monopoly, the dream of former owner a Vince McMahon.

    He protected his spot thanks to his ability to draw and his ruthless locker room tactics. 

    But as his career extended further from his prime, the more his reputation began to hurt his imagine. Former peers spoke unfavorably, younger wrestlers seemed to despite him unilaterally and then came the racist comments he made, which were captured on audio.

    Hogan was best drawing good guy in the history of the business. Then later became its greatest drawing bad guy as part of the most successful stable in wrestling in history, the New World Order. The story of Hogan, the eternal babyface  becoming the \”bad guy\” made headlines in mainstream media the world over.

    Thanks to an evolving wrestling business with innovators all around, Hogan broke many of his own records in WCW. The company became the most profitable in history for a short time. Two years later it was out of business, Hogan\’s ability was a large part of WCW\’s success. His relentless politicking one reason it died. 

    Hogan\’s politicking was an issue for fellow wrestlers throughout the 1980s, but as the top draw of the era, he made those same wrestlers millions of dollars. When fewer bucks were coming in and the business was changing, wrestlers took notice as well as fans took notice, who were becoming better informed thanks to the internet and wrestling newsletters.

    His biggest mistake was lying to Bret Hart in 1993. Hogan seemingly came to Hart\’s rescue after the main event of a Las Vegas WrestleMania crowd when Hart lost the title to Yokozuna. Hart, who was the victim of cheating from manager Mr. Fuji. Fellow good guy Hogan came to the ring and got a spontaneous match for the title, beating Yokozuna in 22 seconds. Hogan managed to bury four wrestlers in one night – earlier he helped Brutus Beefcake beat Ted DiBiase and Mike Rotunda in seconds. 

    Hogan and Hart were supposed to wrestle for the title at SummerSlam, but that match fell apart when Hogan refused to lose to the Hitman, which went against promises Hogan made to McMahon and Hart.

    Hogan gets creative control clause in WCW contract

    Hogan went full Charles Foster Kane in WCW, bringing in many of his personal friends and having creative control in his contract. The result was past-their-prime pals of Hogan, like Jim Duggan, Ed Leslie and the Nasty Boys, were getting wins over younger up-and-coming wrestlers like Steve Austin.

    Not fond of WCW\’s more serious heels, Kevin Sullivan developed the Dungeon of Doom, a stable of cartoony villains, many of which were friends of Hogan, who was always afraid of opponents making him look bad in matches.

    Hogan and Flair feuded constantly while the two were in WCW and Flair later reunited a revamped Four Horsemen with Arn Anderson, Chris Benoit and Brian Pillman. Pillman became the hottest character in the business thanks to his worked-shoot angles that made him seem deranged. He would openly talk about backstage drama in his promos and his I quit match with Kevin Sullivan was staged to look like a real fight that got out of control.

    Pillman, whose goal was to build a character that would get him is star making mega contract, got the attention of Hogan, who saw how crowds reacted to his random appearances.

    Hogan saw the up and coming Pillman, a future star and someone who was showing himself as a draw – and wanted to beat him in the end of a squash multi-man cage match. Pillman didn\’t rise to the bait and later signed with the WWF.

    Hogan\’s creative control clause made chaos for its Monday Nitro show with constantly changing the at the last minute as the show was going on air, leaving wrestlers and announcers confused. 

    WCW\’s Cruiserweight division was a hot commodity, causing the WWF to counter with its own Lt. Heavyweight title when the ratings and fan support poured in. Hogan was among bigger wrestlers, and older ones, who wanted the cruiserweight style \”dialed down\” because it made it him look slow.

    This led to an exodus of younger wrestlers from WCW to the WWF by 1999.

    WCW\’s big baby faces weren\’t immune either. After nearly two years without a match, Sting – the most popular wrestler in the busines at the time – returned to wrestle Hulk Hogan at Starrcade in 1997. It was easily the most anticipated match since Hogan\’s match with Andre the Giant at WrestleMania.

    The overbooked mess turned worse thanks to Hogan\’s politicking and Eric Bischoff\’s reluctance to tell him no. It was also a blow that hurt the company. Veterans believe it was a turning point in the company going out of business.

    The match was a rehash of the Montreal Screwjob which happened just a few more the prior. 

    \”NWO referee\” Nick Patrick was supposed to give a quick count for Hogan, cheating Sting, and fans who waited years for Sting to beat Hogan for the belt, Bret Hart would demand the match restarted and Sting would submit Hogan and win fair with Hart putting a stop to the cheating NWO.

    This didn\’t happen. Patrick, who said in interviews \”he knew who to listen to\”, never gave an upfront explanation for why he didn\’t do the fast count as planned. Instead, Hogan looked like he won in a legit finish, making Hart\’s interference look nonsensical later. Hogan again found a way to bury two wrestlers and a company at once.

    Hogan\’s most memoral match in the company was his loss to Bill Goldberg in front of 40,000 in the Georgia Dome, cementing Goldberg as a star after only a year and a half in wrestling.

    Once Goldberg got the title it was a bit different. Hogan was a guest on CNN\’s Larry King Live. He criticized Goldberg for taking time off a few months into his title run. 

    Goldberg heard the comment and was outraged. Shortly after Hogan\’s Larry King Live appearance. ): appeared on the Wrestling Guys Radio Show, which was broadcast from Dayrton, Ohio and uploaded to the web for an international audience. 

    An angry Goldberg said he was taking time off for knee surgery. He had wrestled for months with a torn knee ligament which occurred months earlier. He said when he returned to action he planned an unfriendly confrontation with Hogan. 

    As were the times, Hogan wasn\’t disciplined but Goldberg was in big trouble with the WCW office. 

    Hogan\’s return to WWE in the early 2000s

    Hogan returned with NWO stablemates Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to WWE, hoping to catch fire after the botched WCW invasion angle. The dream matchups were too good of possible box office for McMahon to ignore.

    The WWE backstage, much of which was former WCW talent, was wary of all three. Nash and Hall wanted to debut much like they did in WCW, in surprising unannounced appearances to build mystery, before finally getting to Hogan. McMahon had other plans in mind, placing them in as any other WWE stable. Worse, gone was the spontaneity that made the NWO angle work, as all three participated in on-camera backstage \”sports entertainment\” packages were far from pro wrestling.

    Austin refused to wrestle Hogan, knowing it would likely end up in a loss for him, and for his work saving the company, a loss he didn\’t deserve to take. Hall wrestle Austin instead at WrestleMania, in an excellent match that was Hall\’s best big show work in years.

    The main event took on a different life. While Hogan was getting steady heel reactions leading to WrestleMania, the crowd was different. They wanted the old Hulkster. Johnson was slated to face Hogan, which elated fans became one of the events defining moments. It was also a political coup for Hogan, who buried his NWO teammates while elevating himself back to WWE superhero status.

    Hogan did a cartoonish feud as Mr. America with McMahon. Then came the feuds that put a depressing epitaph on his career as a star.

    Shawn Michaels was supposed to trade wins with Hogan in big matches. Michaels, who was around for Hogan\’s issues with Hart in 1993, knew the deal. He\’d lose the first and Hogan would refuse a second match, despite any problems. What occurred was the biggest exposure of a top star in the history of wrestling.

    Michaels oversold Hogan\’s offense to a ridiculous extent. At one point Hogan seems to take a swipe or throw a fist at Michaels in annoyance, as Michaels insane overselling made the match and showed he could have a better match with himself than with a 50-year-old Hogan.

    The Michael\’s match should have been a humiliating reminder that the talent and fandom were fully onto him, even though this had been the case since the late 90s. It wasn\’t.

    Randy Orton was part of WWE\’s future. A second-generation wrestler, who had picked the business up fast enough to make the main roster from OVW in his early 20s, he was quickly given a legend-killer gimmick. With wins over Mick Foley and Ric Flair, next came Hogan. Hogan wasn\’t going to be the next on the list, as he dispatched Orton in true Hulkster style, again throwing a roadblock to a younger talent. This was his last match on a major WWE show.

    Hogan would resurface with Bischoff in TNA in the early 2010s, but failed to bring the company the success it sought. TNA was sold to Anthem a few years later.

    Hogan\’s life after wrestling left a dark shadow over his legacy

    Hogan cashed in with a popular reality show, \”Hogan Knows Best,\” featuring his wife, son Nick (a motorhead) and daughter Brooke, an aspiring singer. The show became a dark mark on his personal life. Shortly after it was cancelled, Nick was involved in multiple car crashes, one a DUI that left a passenger with serious brain injuries. He served time in jail and was given a year probation.

    His wife, Linda, left him in a contentious divorce that left Hogan\’s bank account stripped.

    In 2015, audio of Hogan confronting his daughter about a boyfriend, using repeated racial slurs, was made public and ended his legends deal with WWE. He was also involved in a lawsuit with Gawker over a sex tape they published. His suit was backed by controversial venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Not that he needed Thiel\’s help. Gawker\’s own staff testified horribly in depositions, including staff member A.J. Daulerio\’s admission his age at which he wouldn\’t publish a sex tape would be \”4 years old.\” Hogan won his suit.

    Hogan took his politicking to actual politics in 2024. A born-again Christian and a Donald Trump supporter, Hogan\’s last grand performance was in a surreal Republican National Convention celebrating the nomination of Trump.

    Hogan tried appearing in WWE again, but was met with loud boos. He tried saving face to the WWE locker room with a non-apology-apology where he said his words were taken out of context. The roster wasn\’t buying it.

    His last business ventures was an American freestyle wrestling company with Bischoff, and his own line of American beer. The marketing was directly focused on Hogan.

    Hogan\’s legacy defined by what happened outside the ring

    Hogan is a complicated figure to examine in the totality of his life and career. He was a massive draw who drove a business in many ways, not as substantial as many think.

    After his death, Hogan\’s legacy is shadowed by his racist comments and the actions backstage in the business. He was, at one time, the greatest drawing babyface in the history of pro wrestling, and its greatest drawing heel. His ability as a draw lifted the companies he worked, allowing for better pay for those under him on the card.

    His history as a backstage politician, his role in the death of WCW were things that out-lived his in-ring career. He could have rebuilt that easily with effort, but the racial expletives he unleashed at his daughter showed an ugly side of him he was never going to recover.

    Many of today\’s wrestlers see Hogan as an example of what not to be. John Cena, once he got older, was willing to put over younger talent. The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega were always willing to do jobs, much to their detriment, because of the problems they dealt with in the old system and because of Hogan\’s legacy of holding back young talent. Hogan had worked with Chris Jericho, who now remembers him fondly, but Jericho has spent his entire time in AEW working with younger talent either in stables to get them over or in big time matches, trading wins and losses and putting them over.

    That\’s his one great legacy – as an example of what not to be.

  • Judge orders discovery in Janel Grant lawsuit against Carlon Colker, Vince McMahon\’s doctor

    A judge in Connecticut Superior Court ordered discovery in Janel Grant’s lawsuit against Vince McMahon\’s doctor, Carlon Colker and his company Peak Wellness in a ruling on July 8.

    Colker is a doctor for former World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon. Colker and his company, who treated Grant, was sued last year to compel discovery in her federal lawsuit against McMahon and WWE.

    Grant claimed Colker and Peak Wellness failed to provide her medical records and other information to her federal case twice in spring 2024 following requests from her attorneys, according to the complaint. Colker and Peak Wellness responded in a motion saying they provided Grant\’s medical records the day her lawsuit was filed.

    The order, written by Judge Colleen Zingaro on June 27, was in response to a motion for clarification filed on June 12 by Grant. Attorneys for Colker and Peak Wellness filed a motion opposing discovery on June 26. The order means the plaintiff and defendants will have provide discovery ahead of the civil suit, a victory for Grant.

    \”The parties are ordered to submit proposed scheduling orders for interrogatories and objections thereto, requests for production and objections thereto and deposition notices and objections thereto pursuant to court order 116.01,\” Zingaro stated.

    In the suit, attorneys for Grant are asking the court to compel Colker and Peak Wellness to provide the following records:

    • Electronic medical records for Grant, including all associated metadata
    • Colker and Peak Wellness’ recordkeeping and billing procedures
    • Payment records relating to Grant
    • Colker and Peak Wellness’ payment arrangements with McMahon and/or WWE
    • The purpose of Grant’s prescribed treatments
    • The substance of Grant’s prescribed treatments
    • Any communications between Colker and McMahon relating to Grant
    • Colker’s involvement in recommending an attorney to Grant to negotiate the purported non-disclosure agreement with McMahon

    Colker and Peak Wellness were mentioned several times in her original complaint filed in Connecticut district court in January 2024 and her amended complaint filed earlier this year. Grant accused Colker of refusing to provide information on her treatment or her medical records.

    The complaint also alleged a Peak Wellness employee took part in a sex act with Grant and McMahon on company property. In the alleged incident, the complaint stated McMahon defecated on Grant. In an earlier filing, Colker and Peak Wellness said the employee, who is unnamed in the federal and state cases, is no longer with the company.

    Grant\’s federal lawsuit against McMahon and WWE has been paused due to motions filed involving discovery ahead of a motion for arbitration hearing. McMahon, who is accused of sex assault, sex trafficking and other allegations in the complaint, and WWE argue Grant should adhere to an arbitration clause in the non-disclosure agreement she signed with McMahon after she was let go by WWE. Grant argued the clause violates federal law and precedent which nullifies NDAs and arbitration hearings in employment in cases of sex harassment.

    McMahon and WWE say the two federal laws concern arbitration and NDAs signed in the hiring portion of the employment process and not NDAs and clauses agreed to post-employment or after an allegation has occurred.

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  • Janel Grant asks Vince McMahon, WWE for docs Relating to Linda McMahon in Federal Motion

    Janel Grant, a former World Wrestling Entertainment employee suing Vince McMahon and the company for sex trafficking and sex assault in federal district court, is asking for documents and communications regarding Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Dr. Carlon Colker of Peak Wellness in a motion filed on Monday.

    The request was part of a motion to compel discovery ahead of an arbitration hearing. The defendants, Vince McMahon and WWE, believe Grant should adhere to an arbitration clause in a non-disclosure agreement she signed after she left WWE as an employee instead of pursuing her case in court.

    UPDATE: Representatives for Janel Grant gave a statement to SEScoops.

    \”WWE and McMahon had the opportunity to voluntarily provide discovery and they refused. They claim the NDA and its arbitration clause are enforceable, but resist any attempts to investigate whether Ms. Grant was coerced into signing it—facts that go to the heart of its enforceability. They can’t have it both ways. Today we asked the Court to allow that discovery to proceed, Ms. Grant deserves to have the facts about her case.\”

    Grant\’s legal team claimed the NDA violates federal law including the Speak Out Act and the Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as well as recent federal court precedent.

    Grant is suing for discovery in Connecticut court against Colker and Peak Wellness, where she was treated at the behest of McMahon while she was employed at WWE. According to Grant\’s amended complaint, filed earlier this year, Grant was told by Vince McMahon their relationship was discovered by Linda McMahon which led to Grant\’s firing by WWE. Communications between employees and defendants involving Colker and Linda McMahon were part of an exhibit of discovery requests as part of Monday\’s filing.

    The discovery motion mentioned communications between Vince McMahon and his former counsel Jerry McDevitt were available as evidence due to the federal crime-fraud exception in attorney-client privilege.

    Prior to the previous arbitration hearing in 2024, federal prosecutors asked Grant for a stay in her civil suit. They said discovery ahead of the arbitration hearing could interfere with their investigation of Vince McMahon. A six-month stay was placed on the case, which expired in December 2024.

    Shareholders suing Vince McMahon and TKO in the Delaware Court of the Chancery have asked for access to discovery evidence in other cases involving the former WWE owner and president, stating his issues with the federal investigation and the Grant cause led him to take a cheaper bid in the sale of WWE two years ago to TKO.

    Representatives for Vince McMahon say the federal investigation ended earlier this year. An appeals court decision earlier this year, which ruled McDevitt and McMahon should provide missing documents to federal investigators, suggested the case was possibly still ongoing.

    Grant, Vince McMahon and WWE have until July 11 to file responses to the discovery motion.

  • Buyer Eyeing Warner Bros. New Streaming Spin-off (Exclusive)

    Less than a week after Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was splitting into two separate companies, Sony is considering a purchase of WBD\’s streaming and other assets.

    Sources have told SEScoops that Sony is considering a purchase of the newly announced WBD Streaming and Studios company, which is expected to complete its separation from WBD Global Networks by mid-2026. Sony is interested in acquiring WBD\’s HBO MAX streaming service, IPs and its gaming assets.

    WBD announced on June 9 it was splitting the company, with most of the company\’s $37 billion in debt attached to the WBD Global Networks, which include its vast number of cable channels, including CNN, TNT and TBS.

    At the time the deal was announced, sources with knowledge of All-Elite Wrestling\’s contract with WBD said no changes were expected with the company split.

    Sony and Warner Bros. Discovery were working together to build a joint movie studio in Las Vegas this year. According to Variety, the proposal for the 31-acre facility ended on June 3 after the Nevada State Senate rejected a $95 million annual tax subsidy.

    Sources said Sony was only interested acquiring WBD\’s streaming, studio and gaming assets if they were separated from its cable networks, which have lost millions of homes as viewers abandon traditional cable packages.

    David Zaslav, the current CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, is expected to take over WBD Streaming and Studios after the spin-off is complete in 2026. His status under a potential Sony purchase is unclear.

  • Carlon Colker, Peak Wellness Say Employee Involved in \’Sexual Contact\’ No Longer with Company

    In a pre-action discovery filing on Wednesday in Connecticut Superior Court, Dr. Carlon Colker and Peak Wellness said they became aware of an alleged sexual assault of Janel Grant by Vince McMahon and a Peak Wellness employee from media reports and the employee said the act was consensual.

    Grant said in a complaint filed in Connecticut federal district court in January 2024 (and amended earlier this year) she was assaulted by both McMahon and a Peak Wellness employee. Grant alleged McMahon forced her to take part in the act and McMahon defecated on her.

    \”After the federal complaint involving Plaintiff was made public, defendants became aware through a news media report that a now former Peak Wellness employee stated that he had what the defendants understood was a single act of consensual, sexual contact with Plaintiff,\” tge motion said.

    \”According to that former employee, his consensual contact with plaintiff was outside the context of his employment at Peak Wellness. Plaintiff was never a patient that the former employee treated and all his contact with plaintiff was off the premises of Peak Wellness. Defendants have no knowledge of any other instances of sexual contact between plaintiff and any Peak Wellness employee, nor possess any reason to believe that it occurred.\”

    The defendants said they treated Grant with a \”vitamin tray\” once and she was given an IV treatment, but denied the treatment made her unwell.

    In Grant\’s complaint, she alleged McMahon had told her to get a recommendation from Colker for an attorney to represent her in the non-disclosure agreement she later signed with McMahon. The filing said Colker recommended an attorney for Grant when she asked, but didn\’t know she was promopted by McMahon. It said Colker didn\’t know the specifics of the NDA and was only told some details which were told by Grant. The filing also said McMahon paid for all of Grant\’s treatments at Peak Wellness.

    Colker and Peak Wellness were accused by Grant of refusing to provide her records and other recoreds for discovery in her federal lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE.