The Problem With Triple H That No One Wants To Talk About

Following the monumental 2018 right fees agreements that resulted in USA paying more for WWE than they ever had before and Fox helping SmackDown make history as the first billion dollar wrestling show, McMahon's content production formula had proven frustratingly fruitful. Coupled with the monstrous (in every sense of the world) deals with the Saudi Arabian Sports Authority, WWE formally became a business-to-business enterprise. Brandon Thurston's confirmation that consumer spending now made up less than 50% of the company's revenue was an airstrike on the audience as a valid voice against the on-screen ills. The likes of the Yes Movement, the 2015 Royal Rumble protests or even Becky Lynch's inexorable rise as 'The Man' weren't looking likely from increasingly obedient live crowds, but these financials rendered them redundant anyway.

Stock went up, stock went down, investors (and company presidents) came and went, but WWE's quarterly earnings call consistently posted record figures despite a product hitting its nadir in 2020 and external public relations reaching rock bottom follow mass releases during the pandemic and the recent Wall Street Journal scandals.

Nothing spoke to WWE's super-monied era more than Wall Street's reaction to the huge corporate changes - stock surprisingly rose following McMahon's resignation, and as the majority shareholder, he got even richer on the first day of his enforced retirement! Maybe expecting the former Chairman to apply logic and rationale to his booking when so little applied to his real life was too big an ask after all.

The cash-out-the-*ss spreadsheets reflect the objective successes of World Wrestling Entertainment as an organisation, but it only gets harder to form useful opinions on those figures the larger they grow. WWE is hardly art, but the art is still more fun to discuss and debate than the business-to-business commerce that now drives it. And with SummerSlam and the post-PLE Raw, WWE found itself as the destination for pro wrestling due to reasons actually relating to the discussion and debate around pro wrestling.

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