For those who don’t watch MMA regularly or have seen previous Ronda Rousey fights, we’re getting allegations of “fixed”, “rigged”, etc. While I’d normally agree, especially when the grifting Paul brothers are involved, I think that many are giving the MVP promotion too much credit for rigging something. A very motivated and 39 year-old Ronda destroyed a 44 year-old Gina Carano who last fought during 2009 and spent much of the year losing 100 pounds. Carano never faced anyone as capable as Rousey, hence the humiliating defeat.

While I wished that they could have fought longer, I was pretty satisfied with the bloody battle between Nate Diaz and Mike Perry. Nate Diaz was bleeding from multiple places, as I impressed with how he didn’t just pass out during the fight from so much blood loss. Sometimes, the main event for both boxing and MMA cards can be disappointing but something on the undercard pops to keep you relatively satisfied.

Honestly for me, it was on Netflix versus blowing through Pay Per View dollars… So I didn’t lose my arse on the event, as I consume Netflix heavily to get my money’s worth. I’m still smarting from the FRAUD known as Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao that took my $99 (or $33, splitting it with 2 buddies).

That’s what you get from boxing or MMA events… High risk, but high reward. Thanks to boxing and MMA being legit competitive sports, when their main event matches hit, you’ll remember it forever. When it thuds, it really hurts and angers you as a customer.

My Dad loved boxing and we purchased many boxing Pay Per Views during the 1990s… There were many skunks, such as the Mike Tyson fight or pretty much any late 1990s Tyson fight… But then you’d get matches that you’d never forget, like Riddick Bowe vs. Evander Holyfield or the night when George Foreman SHOCKED the world by defeating Michael Moorer for the world championship. It was a literal roll of the dice, as the highs were amazing and the lows were disappointing. Yet, those highs were so good that you dared to roll that dice.

I remember how great UFC was through the late 2000s and early 2010s. Promotion was full of stars and had major cards that often delivered with various weight classes. I took a chance on multiple Pay Per Views with Brock Lesnar on it and he almost always delivered, as he’d take a beating for much of the match and then pull off a miraculous comeback.

But, both UFC and boxing have had their induced lows… For boxing, you had to watch Don King’s involvement as most of those matches were always fishy in nature, in my opinion. The multiple world titles really hurt things, too, as it diluted who the real world champion was when the belts were split up. I was so mad when Riddick Bowe threw away one of the world titles, as I knew it would create chaos with the world titles.

For UFC, the sale to Endeavor really hurt the promotion’s quality. What you’re seeing now in the WWE is what UFC has endured since 2016. Wrestlers not getting paid and minimized versus pushing a brand, more ads crammed into events, more ads all over the octagon and arena, and fewer diehard fans in the crowd versus corporate types (higher ticket prices often does that). UFC has become a completely nameless promotion other than Dana White as its president.

With Pro Wrestling, as I’ve argued for YEARS as Mr. Tito, you truly get your BANG for your BUCK. 3 hour shows with multiple matches going 20-30 minutes and often providing scripted moments that you’ll never forget.

Wrestling provides low risk (cheaper than MMA or boxing) with often moderate to high returns. Rarely do you get a skunk Premium Live Event or Pay Per View for wrestling. When WWE cost $9.99 per month for its WWE Network, it really felt good to watch the WWE’s biggest shows of the year.

Which brings me to WWE’s Premium Live Events from 2026…

For one, you’re paying for ESPN Unlimited for $29.99 per month, which is either more than triple or double of what you were paying with Peacock (depending on which streaming package that you had). Then, WWE is delivering SHORTER matches on PLEs now… That’s right, if you watched WWE Backlash 2026, only ONE match was above 20 minutes long in length and that was the opening match that aired on ESPN 2 between Rollins and Breakker.

How about Wrestlemania 42? Night #1 featured 4 matches out of 7 that were under 10 minutes long, while Night #2 had 4 out of 6 matches that were at or under 10 minutes long. Only the 2 main events went above 20 minutes of that event.

WWE PLEs are PACKED full of advertisements now, with them either being required advertisement spots per ESPN Unlimited or WWE running their own ads.

And that’s on top of an event with a ring littered with ads now, while each match has their own sponsor.

TKO is now requesting that many WWE stars take a 50% paycut…

Yep, Endeavor is morphing WWE right into another UFC model. Grift the fans and television network for as much money as you can and deep pocket the money obtained. Rinse and repeat.

Part of the allure for having boxing or MMA on Netflix is to try new things that the other professions wouldn’t try, while creating unexpected match-ups. UFC reportedly turned down Carano vs. Rousey, expecting it to be the mismatch that it turned out to be. Yet, this MVP promotion did 27 million for its first MMA event on Netflix.

Makes me wonder how much TKO will “butter up” Netflix to let them go the full 10 year term of their contract or maybe re-sign for something higher once the first 5 years are up. After all, what could stop someone from starting their own one-off wrestling event that airs on Netflix? TKO having the WWE could be a deterrent for any rouge one-off wrestling events from happening.

What made wrestling interesting again was during 2018, Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, and their friends held the first ever “All In” event. They drew 10,000 fans and eyeballs to Pay Per View without any promotional machine behind them. Cody and the Bucks proved that a big event without a major promotion to not only happen, but draw. This “All In” 2018 event was so successful that it inspired the Khan family to join up with Rhodes and the Bucks to form All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Since then, you’ve had real choice in wrestling to consume either WWE or AEW events and that choice has given us incredible events since the COVID-19 pandemic ended.

But now, here we are in 2026, and WWE is in first place by a distance after widening the gap during 2023. Complacent, WWE has now reduced the quantity and quality of its PLE events by shortening the matches and inserting more advertisements. The end result is a lot of starting and stopping, just like an overly corporate boxing or MMA event.

So yeah, WWE PLEs used to be a guaranteed great evening of wrestling but now it’s like a disappointing boxing or MMA event. Well, maybe it’s like UFC for the past 10 years. Once this current crop of veterans fully retire from the WWE, WWE will be like UFC with brand over wrestlers pushed harder than ever and lots of ads shoved in your faces during events.

WWE should be delivering great matches and fewer ads… They should remind boxing and MMA fans of how risky it is to watch their big events, as the main events often disappoint. Instead, we’re getting shorter matches and more advertisements.

TRUSTING that a WWE PLE was great was a guarantee that used to be in place… But now, the dream is over… TKO has taken over and has ruined yet another thing in the WWE.

TKO has so much revenue coming in from WWE and UFC, yet it still has a high level of debt. Endeavor and its daddy Silver Lake also have a high level of debt. Seems like it’s a management issue within the Endeavor and TKO groups on grifting and being unable to operate a company without high levels of debt.

The dream is over, what can I say? The dream is over, yesterday… And so, dear friends, you’ll just have to carry on, the dream is over.

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post MR. TITO: What Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano’s MVP MMA Event “Disappointment” Could Teach WWE & TKO About Their Recent PLEs appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.

Wrestlemania 42 isn’t selling tickets at the rate of how Wrestlemania 41 sold them one year ago at the same venue. FACT. While around 45,000 tickets is still impressive for any live wrestling event, during this time last year, Wrestlemania 41 sold just over 50,000 tickets.

Both Wrestlemania 41 and 42 were held at Allegiant Stadium (home of the Raiders) in Las Vegas and can house up to 72,000 for larger events. Wrestlemania 41 was just over 60,000 for night 2 while being just over 58,000 for night 1. Again, while those numbers are great for any wrestling event, this is WRESTLEMANIA and Royal Rumble 2025 that preceded it at Indianapolis did just over 70,000 in attendance.

Wrestlemania 40, meanwhile, did just over 60,000 for both nights and thus Wrestlemania 41 drew less than that. And now, unless something changes, Wrestlemania 42 will decline below that.

In other words, it appears that maybe WWE peaked through 2024?

Well, imagine Wrestlemanias 41 and 42 without the extreme price gouging by the TKO machine.

According to Sports Illustrated, the average ticket price for Wrestlemania 40 in Philadelphia was $341. One year later, Wrestlemania 41 had an average ticket price of $635!

If I go to Ticketmaster.com right now, as Wrestlemania 42’s average ticket price will be computed later once sales are final, but everything is higher at every seating level for 2026 versus 2025 in the same Las Vegas stadium.

And that’s on top of the excessive price gouging that the city of Las Vegas has, whether it’s for landing at their airport, ride share costs, taxes on damn near everything, super high food prices, higher hotel rates (especially for bigger events), and fees on damn near everything. Total visitors, thanks to the higher prices, has declined by about 7.5% during 2025 versus the previous year.

Hence why Las Vegas was desperate and cut a check for a reported $6 million to the WWE to return to Las Vegas for a back-to-back Wrestlemania. WWE also gets a piece of the ticket prices and can sell their merchandise, too.

Through 2026, they are seeing yet another decline in attendance… For both 2025 and 2026 in Las Vegas, if they retained the average ticket prices seen in Philadelphia for Wrestlemania 40, they would have EASILY sold out both Wrestlemanias 41 and 42. Give your fans a break on the ticket prices and then the hotels, air travel, food, etc. don’t feel as excessive. Price gouge on the ticket prices, and then things change.

Simply put, this is economics 101… Law of Demand states that there is an inverse relationship between price and quantity demanded. Increase the price, you should expect consumers to buy less. Decrease the price and make things cheaper, consumers will buy more.

HOWEVER, there are outside factors that could BOOST the desire by consumers to spend more or less on goods and services, such as:

1) Tastes & Preferences – If you really like a good, then you’ll be willing to PAY MORE for a particular good of service. In my opinion, WWE Creative improving since Triple H took it over during June 2022 has improved wrestling fans’ desires to attend WWE event and consume MORE of their products even with rising prices.

2) Income – On average, incomes have increased since the pandemic year of 2020 by around 14%. However, many businesses closed up during 2020 and caused many to obtain new jobs. Furthermore, if you look at the average real disposable income, it’s highly skewed towards top wage earners who are raising that inequality gap. Many speak of a “K-Shaped Economy”, in which people at the top are doing really well while people at the bottom are struggling as witnessed by high credit card debit and exhausted savings. 2025’s economy struggled for that lower portion of the “K”, as only 181,000 combined jobs were created compared to 2024’s 1.5 million job creation number. Prices on utilities are eating people alive now (electricity and gas), while the costs of food and housing haven’t gone down at all.

3) Expectations – In other words, how good does your consumer base feel about (a) job security and (b) income security? According to consumer sentiment numbers, really low… December 2025 numbers are rolling in and it appears that consumers cutback on Christmas spending this year.

4) Prices of Related Goods – This refers to substitute goods, which can replace WWE as a wrestling product, or complement goods, which are used alongside with attending WWE events. First and foremost, the WWE is the #1 company by a margin and every statistical category proves that. Dave Meltzer can spike his stupid Observer awards with AEW wrestlers, but WWE crushes them on business each year with viewers, attendance, merchandise, and TV rights. Even with higher ticket prices, people aren’t attending AEW events with much lower ticket prices. FACT. But on the complement front, prices for hotels, food, and travel have all gone up or remain high especially for Las Vegas.

Market Size – # of Consumers – Thanks to the WWE’s business boom of 2022-2024, WWE has grown their fanbase. With more fans in place, there are more fans to exploit with higher prices than ever.

The FACT that wrestling fans STILL attend WWE events, despite the high prices, shows that TASTES AND PREFERENCES for the WWE product is still strong. Thus, the blame does NOT go to WWE Creative as led by Triple H. HHH is doing a great job, as he made the Bloodline better during 2022 thanks to adding Sami Zayn, made Cody Rhodes even bigger, swallowed his pride and brought back CM Punk, repackaged Drew McIntyre to have his best years yet, and proved that yes indeed, Liv Morgan is a massive star. RAW consistently obtains 10,000 fans, as it has returned to being WWE’s flagship show. And again, over 40,000 highly priced tickets sold for Wrestlemania 42 is still impressive and WWE is making millions off that event. AEW would KILL for any of their events to sell 40,000 tickets domestically at their lower prices.

Let’s be honest about Wrestlemania 42’s booking… Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk is truly their best match-up possible, aside from the Rock returning to finally wrestle Roman Reigns. Pushing Liv Morgan is the best outcome possible on the women’s side. Possibly having Brock Lesnar vs. Gunther is another big match, if that actually happens. Whomever Drew or Cody wrestle will be big… It’s not like WWE Creative is screwing up Wrestlemania 42, given what is available.

But at super high prices, fans have a saturation point to where it’s not worth getting price gouged by BOTH WWE and Las Vegas in one weekend.

As the Million Dollar Man used to say… “Everybody’s got a price”, but that works in the opposite way when someone is spending their hard-earned income. Wrestlemania 42 could feature hot women, walking around in the nude, and then stopping to blow you… And it still wouldn’t be worth $500 to $14,000 for a seat in Las Vegas plus travel, hotel, and other forms of price gouging.

Then we’ll get the Vince McMahon marks, who always look the other way when it comes to assaulting women and then having them sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA)… ”Vince wouldn’t charge high ticket prices!” Well, when he was micro-managing creative for the last 15 years through mid-2022, he didn’t have a product that actually grew fans. Those 2010s years, especially, were ROUGH to watch and saw RAW viewership going from just above 4 million during early 2015 to being under 2 million by the late 2010s. THAT was Vince McMahon and his clown show of rewriting scripts that got himself off.

Facts to consider about Vince McMahon:

(1) The first PLE event in Saudi Arabia was during April 2018, 5 years before the sale to TKO.

(2) WWE doesn’t go on sale if Vince didn’t force himself back onto the WWE Board of Directors during early 2023 plus adding 2 board members of his choice. Then, the WWE Board under Vince’s leadership began shopping around and sold to Endeavor. Vince, as majority shareholder, certainly helped the vote go in favor of selling.

(3) Vince McMahon became chairman of the TKO Board during 2023 and remained there through early 2024. Very likely that prices of WWE events and merchandise deals were among the discussions with the Endeavor folks also on that board.

(4) Helped negotiate the Netflix deal which pays the WWE $500 million annually. Success for them, but higher Netflix subscription rates for you. Higher deal with USA Networks, too, for WWE Smackdown which could be influencing your higher cable bills.

(5) Vince McMahon added Nick Khan to the WWE during August 2020, and he worked as a negotiator on behalf of the WWE before that year. Nick has been heavily involved in WWE’s pricing strategy.

I hope that puts to rest the “Vince wouldn’t have done this” argument, because he’s every bit as greedy as the folks running TKO. Anytime his WWE had growth periods during the 1980s with Hulkamania and later with the Attitude Era, ticket prices did go up significantly.

How about this? I wrote a column during 2014 about how WWE created the WWE Network because their Pay Per View model was dying. Why? Because they went from pricing WWE PPVs from $29.99 to $44.99, not including the Big 3 events. WWE killed their own PPV market by creating more PPVs and raising the price. That was during the mid to late 2000s and early 2010s. Who was in charge of WWE then? It was Vince McMahon. He only formed WWE Network BECAUSE HE HAD TO due to demand decline for buying Pay Per Views and piracy ramping up because of higher prices.

But when he had a chance to sell WWE Network, he did so immediately to NBC/Universal… From there, your $9.99 price started ticking up on the Peacock streaming network if you didn’t want commercials.

Oh, and how about this with the WWE? As Vince McMahon is landing these big TV deals with NBC Universal for both USA Network/Peacock and FOX while raking in the money from Saudi Arabia, what happened to the wrestlers? Did they get paid more? Nope… In fact, pay has plateaued after the initial AEW scare and many talent cuts happened during 2020-2022 while the WWE pocketed all of the revenues from these big deals.

So STOP IT with the “I want Vince McMahon” back crap. He was equally as greedy as the folks from TKO, but his Creative SUCKED from 2006-2021 and wasn’t able to price gouge like TKO now can with better creative in place under Triple H. Furthermore, why would you want Vince back? Are you OK with him having female employees or workers sign NDAs to participate in his sick games?

TKO is the problem, along with other greedy corporations. Tired of high grocery prices? Well, only a handful of corporations own the top grocery store chains. Kroger’s CEO literally admitted in court to price gouging and the only punishment they saw from it was being disallowed to acquire one of their competitors. We only have 3 cell phone companies now and they can price gouge all they want… Netflix trying to buy Warner Bros. for $83 billion. Do you think that won’t cause a price hike for both their streaming service and also at theaters? If Paramount/Skydance gets Warner Bros. for over $100 billion, which they are seriously offering, do you think that won’t cause higher prices for their content? Pharmaceuticals, banks, and other corporations are acquiring each other and taking out massive loans to do so. That all has a price and that will be passed on to you.

Notice how TKO is receiving higher than ever streaming revenue, $250 million from Saudi Arabia for Royal Rumble 2026 and Wrestlemania 43, payouts from United States cities, and sponsors on everything inside and outside of the ring… But yet, they cannot appreciate or show any loyalty to:

(a) Loyal WWE fans who helped support WWE before its 2022 growth rate

(b) Wrestlers who helped make WWE great. Severely underpaid, as it baffles me why they won’t unionize.

Do you know what the scary thing is?

“News insiders” are claiming that the WWE is “panicking” due to lower Wrestlemania 42 ticket sales. Are you kidding me?

WWE still has over 40,000 fans paid and at higher ticket prices, they are likely close to Wrestlemania 42’s financial gate already (especially if the 30% higher number is true). Furthermore, the $6 million check from Las Vegas to move away from New Orleans has already been cashed. Trust me, Vegas is happy with getting 40,000 people there and plugged into their hotels, casinos, and eateries. Lastly, no matter what the attendance is, WWE is earning $325 million per year to stream WWE PLEs on ESPN+.

Nick Khan, the Endeavor folks, and the rest of the TKO Board are high fiving right now.

If they wanted, they could let Saudi host all Wrestlemanias and Royal Rumbles moving forward. Hell, maybe they could sell them a piece of the company for several billion dollars.

The more CORPORATE you become, the more obsessed about pleasing ONLY the shareholders you become.

Folks, we’ve been on a 25+ year journey from when the WWE made their initial public offering (IPO) on October 19, 1999. On that day, the WWE became a publicly traded corporation with shares of stock officially selling on the stock market. With that, WWE now had to post their financial statements to the public and those are used to drum up support for investors to buy more of WWE’s stock. As WWE begins to warm up to pleasing shareholders on keeping profitability high (revenues up or stable, but expenses controlled or lowered), they began to attract other corporations. Remember when they returned to NBC/Universal? Comcast helped introduce the PG Era. Remember when Mattel helped Mandy Rose lose her job? And then selling to Endeavor during 2023 after the same company put their corporate fangs into UFC and ruined that sport.

TKO has only been here for about 3 years of that corporate WWE journey…

Go ahead, push Triple H out the door… Do you really expect that the corporate barons on the TKO board will adequately replace him? Do you really trust the same corporate trolls who are price gouging you on events, gouging you on merchandise through Fanatics, causing you to pay ESPN $29.99 per month, causing higher prices at Netflix, and selling their biggest PLEs to the largest bidder to put someone of quality in WWE Creative? NOPE, they’ll put in someone who will read TKO’s analytics and focus group data to do just enough to maximize profits.

Sure, bring Vince McMahon back, the guy who SOLD to Endeavor during 2023. He’ll cause those prices to go down against the same executive management who forced him out the door during 2024?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Do you really want to put the SCREWS to TKO?

You’ve got to play the long-game, folks… What matters most to WWE and TKO are the TV rights deals.

(1) Don’t watch RAW on Netflix at all. Watch clips on YouTube or WWE’s social media account, which are LEGAL ways to view what happens. If you get the viewership so low, then Netflix may begin threatening to opt out early at 5 years from the 10-year deal.

(2) Don’t watch Smackdown on USA Network at all. Same thing, watch clips on YouTube or WWE’s social media about, both are LEGAL ways to view what happens. Smackdown deal is also up at the end of 5 years and lower viewership could impair WWE’s next deal.

(3) Sparingly watch ESPN+. If you’re a viewer of PLEs, maybe consider “doing without” for the non-big 3 events. Again, you can legally catch clips on YouTube or WWE’s social media accounts. If you need to watch Rumble or Wrestlemania, then just buy for January and April only. You could also take Stephanie McMahon’s advice and VPN your way into International Netflix…

(4) Boast on Social Media. Openly brag about how you’re NOT viewing WWE events on Social Media and hashtag WWE every time. They are monitoring this stuff closely and will panic if they see a massive trend. Make it known WHY you aren’t subscribing to services that air WWE television.

I’d suggest “don’t attend WWE events”, but WWE will ship more events overseas…

Things won’t change if you keep giving TKO your money, despite their desires to price gouge you or force you into being a customer of a price gouger like ESPN+.

Wrestlemania 42 ticket sales have sagged due to TKO’s greed at accepting a $6 million check from Las Vegas to move away from New Orleans and then TKO decided to raise prices significantly anyway. That’s what a greedy corporation does and they suck.

But I’ll argue that Triple H is doing his best with his current resources, creatively… My only issue with him is the same exact issue that I had with him during the 2010s: he struggles to sign and develop male main eventers. Kevin Owens, Gunther, and AJ Styles are his biggest success stories. Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins were FCW talents and signed by John Laurinaitis, and even Bron Breakker was a Jon Laurinaitis signing while HHH was gone from Talent Relations. The top WWE guys are getting long in the tooth and I lack faith in the younger crop to fully replace them.

If you’re asking me today what happens to Triple H… Some bad injury luck or retirements from the older roster will cause numbers to decline during 2027-2028, which could prompt the TKO board to pressure him to resign. When he does, I’d expect some Hollywood type, likely handpicked by the Rock, to take over and you’ll see a WWE go from SUCK to BLOW like never before. And then Triple H will get the last laugh because the current management will share the same problem of being unable to develop younger talent while there will be a major lacking of veteran talent to carry things through. Netflix will drop WWE by early 2030 and they’ll probably return back to the arms of NBC/Universal but at a lower price than what Netflix was paying them. And then, TKO cashes out and sells WWE and its properties to someone else or another company.

And then the WWE will be lost forever, thanks to becoming corporate.

In short, overall, I’ve enjoyed Triple H’s tenure since mid 2022. I’ll take his tenure at creative versus Vince’s micro-management of Creative from 2006-2021 and without the NDAs for mistreating women. Triple H has created a compelling WWE product that fans are actually willing to pay high prices for, though Wrestlemania 42 may prove to be the breaking point.

Greedy ass TKO can go to hell!

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post MR. TITO: Wrestlemania 42’s Weak Ticket Sales are an Indictment of TKO, NOT WWE Creative appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.

As I look through this press release, which is NOT an official SEC Filing, I’m curious to know where Netflix came up with some of their numbers.

Why? Because Netflix’s weekly viewership numbers can be obtained from HERE, which is Netflix.com’s “TUDUM” subsite that shows the GLOBAL Top 10 rankings for their most viewed programs for a given 7 days, Sunday through Saturday. For WWE RAW, this would include their LIVE version of their weekly Monday show plus any additional viewership. These numbers are also world wide.

For documentation purposes, here are the WEEKLY RAW numbers accumulated from Netflix.com’s Top 10 lists and these are GLOBAL numbers, which were conveniently compiled by Steve Gerweck (which I did random sample testing on to ensure accuracy with Netflix.com):

1/6/2025: 5900000
1/13/2025: 3700000
1/20/2025: 3000000
1/27/2025: 2900000
2/3/2025: 3100000
2/10/2025: 2800000
2/17/2025: 2800000
2/24/2025: 2600000
3/3/2025: 3100000
3/10/2025: 3000000
3/17/2025: 3100000
3/24/2025: 3000000
3/31/2025: 2900000
4/7/2025: 2800000
4/14/2025: 2900000
4/21/2025: 3600000
4/28/2025: 3000000
5/5/2025: 2800000
5/12/2025: 2700000
5/19/2025: 2700000
5/26/2025: 2600000
6/2/2025: 2700000
6/9/2025: 2900000
6/16/2025: 2700000
6/23/2025: 2600000
6/30/2025: 2500000
7/7/2025: 2600000
7/14/2025: 2700000
7/21/2025: 2700000
7/28/2025: 2700000
8/4/2025: 3000000
8/11/2025: 2800000
8/18/2025: 2800000
8/25/2025: 2600000
9/1/2025: 2400000
9/8/2025: 2600000
9/15/2025: 2600000
9/22/2025: 2300000
9/29/2025: 2300000
10/6/2025: 2400000
10/13/2025: 2400000
10/20/2025: 2600000
10/27/2025: 2300000
11/3/2025: 2400000
11/10/2025: 2800000
11/17/2025: 3100000
11/24/2025: RAW wasn’t in Netflix Top 10
12/1/2025: RAW wasn’t in Netflix Top 10
12/8/2025: 2500000
12/15/2025: RAW wasn’t in Netflix Top 10
12/22/2025: RAW wasn’t in Netflix Top 10
12/29/2025: RAW wasn’t in Netflix Top 10

For 11/24, 12/1, 12/15, 12/22, and 12/29, WWE Raw was NOT on the Top 10 list. Stranger Things, NFL, and other popular shows knocked WWE out for those days. As you can see by the tenth positioned show for each week, RAW for these weeks were pulling LESS than 3.5 to 4.1 million views for these weeks.

With those 5 dates as being unknown, the sum of the other 47 weeks equates to 133,000,000 total viewers or 2.8 million average viewers per week. If you annualize the numbers, meaning you take 133 million divided by 47 weeks and then multiplied by 52 weeks, you’d have 147,148,936 total viewers and mathematically gives you the same average of 2.8 million viewers per week.

I want to strongly stress this point… If my mathematics is incorrect, I’ll gladly make edits or even take this column down. You can clearly see that my information source is Netflix.com’s TUDUM website. Again, any feedback about these numbers can be posted below or emailed to me as necessary.

Now, what did Netflix say on their 1/12/26 press release? You can read it yourself by CLICKING HERE or reading the specific numerical statements by Netflix that I’ve pasted conveniently down below:

LEAVING A MARK AROUND THE GLOBE

Since RAW’s official Netflix debut on January 6, 2025, the show has made the Global English TV Top 10 nearly every week it’s been on service (47 out of a possible 52 weeks). Over 52 shows, RAW has averaged more than 3M views per week.

Let’s breakdown that second paragraph, first. “Over 52 shows, RAW has averaged more than 3M views per week”. That is somewhat close to my 2.8 million views that I’m estimating for 47 weeks, given that I’m missing 5 separate weeks because RAW failed to make Netflix’s Top 10. In other words, by Netflix.com’s own TUDUM Top 10 Data, RAW would have to seriously push higher viewerships during those 5 dates to push that average above 3 million. Each week would seriously have to push it near that 3.5 to 4.1 million barrier, which I DOUBT happened. More than likely, as current trends were showing by Netflix’s own data, they were under 3.0 million each week and with the holidays + RAW phoning it in with taped shows, maybe less than 2.5 million.

BUT, let’s just take bare minimum at face value. 3 million * 52 weeks = 156,000,000 approximate views for WWE RAW.

So… Where on earth does that “RAW accounted for nearly 340M views” number come from in that first paragraph?

Netflix’s own press release contradicts itself. On one hand, it has averaged just over 3 million per week to give you something just over 156,000,000 viewers per week… That’s not quite anywhere near 340 million views. And REMEMBER, my numbers from Netflix.com’s TUDUM Top 10 lists were for GLOBAL numbers.

If I were an investor curious to purchase Netflix’s stock, I’d ask questions about that 340 million RAW views versus averaging 4 million views per week over 52 weeks mathematics. There’s a big GAP between 340 million and approximately 156 million when considering that “more than 3 million views per week” number. And if it was something like 3.5 million, Netflix would state “3.5 million” instead. No, they said flat 3 million as a number. Because if RAW averaged 3.5 million over 52 weeks, that equates to 177 million total viewers. Which AGAIN, is much less than 340 million stated here.

Unless Netflix is somehow including Social Media, YouTube, or other analytics… We’re not getting to 340 million numbers with their own “over 52 shows, RAW has averaged more than 3M views per week” statement, brother. Maybe they are somehow excluding all international viewership, but their Netflix.com TUDUM site explicitly states these are “GLOBAL” numbers.

Again, if I’m misinterpreting the statement or the numbers, please correct me.

Let’s assume that Netflix is somehow “correct” about 340 million. $500 million, which is the annual Netflix payment to WWE, divided by 340 million equates to $1.47 million per view. That’s right, every RAW show costs Netflix just under $1.5 million per RAW. Now, you could say “that includes PLEs shown internationally”, to which I’d advise that Netflix was ALREADY airing WWE PLEs internationally before the 2025 deal. Peacock is a North American streaming app for NBC/Universal content, and thus Peacock wasn’t airing internationally and thus WWE had to use other streaming services for reach. Netflix paid $500 million for RAW and DID NOT obtain the North American streaming rights because ESPN and WWE screwed them out of that.

If you use Netflix’s 52 weeks and over 3 million average views numbers, Netflix’s cost-per-viewer gets much worse. If you use 156 viewers, assuming 3.0 million average viewers, the cost becomes $3.2 million per RAW view. If you use 177 million viewers, assuming 3.4 million average viewers, the cost becomes $2.8 million.

Congrats, WWE fans… You’ve become an expensive commodity!

Something is up between Netflix stating that RAW drew a total of 340 million views and then stating that RAW had an average of over 3 million views per week over 52 weeks.

And, again, and I want to stress this strongly… I’m obtaining numbers from Netflix.com’s own Top 10 reporting on GLOBAL viewership, which is aggregated total per brand of show. Thus, it’s a total 7 day count for ANY RAW show viewed that week, whether it was LIVE or watching a recording of any RAW show.

Because if 340 million is the TRUE RAW viewership, then the average becomes 6.5 million viewers GLOBALLY. That’s like Attitude Era viewership, which the WWE hasn’t come close to achieving since mid-2000.

And RAW’s weekly viewership only got close to that on January 7th with the premiere show that featured Roman Reigns actually wrestling (I know, shock right?) and The Rock appearing to possibly set up Rock vs. Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania 41. THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN, as the Rock just kinda stood there as Roman ended the Bloodline angle by defeating Solo Sikoa. The 1/7/25 RAW drew 5.9 million GLOBALLY, while the 1/14/25 week for RAW dropped 2.2 million views to be 3.7 million. And RAW has been losing viewers on Netflix ever since, while being consistently UNDER 3 million viewers since Wrestlemania 41 in April.

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I need challenged… But I’m using Netflix’s own DATA and their own PRESS RELEASE with stated numbers.

If RAW truly drew 6.5 million viewers weekly, WWE would be exploding in growth during 2025 relative to what they were doing during 2023-2024 that nabbed them the Netflix deal for $500 million per year. They’re not… At best, they are similar to 2024 but WWE has had a real struggle filling stands for WWE Smackdown and if you look at Wrestlenomic’s attendance numbers, there have been some slight declines and that would translate into slight merchandise declines, too.

Personally, I think that their “averaged over 3 million” is more accurate for RAW, while the 340 million needs further clarification.

Prove me wrong and if I’m wrong, I’ll follow-up. If I’m right, then maybe investors for both Netflix and TKO stock could have something interesting to file against these companies.

Numbers don’t lie, especially if the dataset is your own.

For all I know, maybe each of the RAW viewers are watching the show TWICE each week to get to that 340 million?

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And this column is actually a follow-up to columns that I’ve written for the past year or so. For example, on October 16th how Netflix may have severely overpaid for a WWE product in decline. They are paying $500 million per year for a RAW show that has already lost 1.4 million viewers WORLDWIDE, while also getting denied the opportunity to also host Premium Live Events when WWE took ESPN/Disney’s money instead to host PLEs.

However, I’ve been all over WWE’s push the jack-up ticket prices to live WWE events.

10/25/24 – The Economics of Higher Ticket Prices for WWE Wrestlemania 41 in Las Vegas

1/12/25 – Will WWE’s Rising Ticket Prices Have Harmful Effects on its Loyal Fanbase

3/20/25 – ASK TITO: Follow-Up on Rising WWE Ticket Prices

9/19/25 – Wrestling Fans Need to Stand Up to the Price Gouging and Uncaring TKO Owned WWE

So yeah, I’ve had you covered here at NoDQ.com regarding WHY the WWE was raising ticket prices. In summary, it’s based on YOU the Consumer enjoying the WWE product and being more willing to pay for it, WWE expanding its product with more live event opportunities which drives up operational costs, cost of venues going up in price, and what was a rebounding economy through 2023 and 2024 following COVID-19 and the excess liquidity from the 2020-2021 policy responses that drove up inflation.

However, here were are in November 2025 and several things have changed.

• WWE Smackdown’s live attendance for its television shows has cratered. According to Wrestlenomics (Source), WWE Smackdown’s live attendance averaged 11,018 during the 3rd quarter 2025 but has since averaged 6,814 so far from October to early November.

• The economy is in rougher shape. ADP not only reports slower job growth for 2025, but 3 out of the last 5 months have seen NEGATIVE job growth. Challenger’s job report showed over 150,000 announced job cuts for October 2025 alone, while reporting that 2025 has seen the highest amount of job cuts, by a wide margin, versus what was seen during our last recession of 2020. Moody’s economists project that 22 out of 50 states are in a recession right now with more to potentially follow soon.

• Inflation has yet to go away, increasing in some places. The recent CPI Report shows a moving 12 month number of 3.0%, which is just at the tip of the Federal Reserve’s comfort level on inflation. This number would be higher hand it not been for gasoline prices reducing because the supply increased due to few shipments made by trucks while apparel sales are down with consumer’s cutting back on their spending at retailers, malls, or shopping centers. Food is up 3.1%, Electricity is up 5.1%, piped gas utilities are up a massive 11.7%, shelter (or housing) is up 3.6%, and medical services is up 3.9%. Who can afford increased ticket prices at WWE events?????

Now, one could argue that WWE Smackdown being on Fridays is an issue during the end of the third quarter and throughout the fourth quarter. I 100% agree, as people would rather attend high school sports or go out on a date rather than watch WWE programming on USA Network. HOWEVER, the drop in live attendance for Smackdown hasn’t dropped like this during prior years. For example, 2024’s 3rd Quarter had an average of 11,982 while the 4th quarter 2024 dropped to 10,156 (source). Compare that, again, to a drop of 11,018 for 3rd quarter 2025 (which is lower versus 2024) to the current average of 6,814 through October and early November. Sorry, but losing over 4,000 attendees is greater than losing about 1,800.

Yes, you may counter my argument because according to Wrestlenomic’s numbers, WWE RAW is doing well on attendance and is in fact growing. Hey, you got me and you make a great point… But WWE has obviously shifted over its top stars to RAW rather than having them appear on Smackdown. Since John Cena’s feud with Cody Rhodes, he’s appeared more on RAW. Roman Reigns is exclusive to RAW, if and when he actually appears. Thus, that leaves WWE Smackdown with Cody Rhodes as the main star to hopefully draw viewers. Well, as you saw during 2024 after Wrestlemania 40, viewership AND attendance did, in fact, fall through the end of the 2nd quarter and 3rd quarters of 2024 with Roman out and Cody carrying the ball in his feuds with Logan Paul, AJ Styles, and the Solo-led Bloodline. Even with Roman back, the dreaded 4th quarter saw no rebounds for 2024. Now with Smackdown on the USA Network, it went from being on over 100 million households on FOX to maybe 60-70 million for USA Network.

But, WWE has toured more internationally lately to help pump up some of those RAW attendance numbers… And the FACT remains, as I wrote in this column, RAW on Netflix has already lost 1.4 million viewers and keeps declining worldwide on viewership.

For wrestling fans to be WILLING to depart with some of their income to attend WWE events, the quality of the shows has to be there. While it’s been nice to have John Cena back for 1 more year and CM Punk functioning again without injury, the WWE doesn’t have the magic that it once had during 2022-2023 when the Bloodline was on absolute fire with the combined group of Roman, Heyman, the Usos, Sami Zayn, and Solo. Those first 4 months of 2023 mattered, as Royal Rumble was on fire and Wrestlemania 39 is arguably a Top 10 (maybe 5) Wrestlemania. After that, the group disbanded and limped along until The Rock came along and breathed new life into it with “Hollywood Rock” returning. The thought was that maybe we’d get Rock vs. Roman for Wrestlemania 41, but we didn’t and we may never unless the Saudi Arabia check is big enough for Wrestlemania 43.

Since 2023 and with TKO fully owning the WWE, thanks to Vince McMahon forcing the sale of the WWE company to Endeavor, we’ve seen an erosion with the WWE. Like TKO’s other owned entity, the UFC, the emphasis was taken away from the performers and more towards the brand. What the folks at Endeavor, who created TKO as a subsidiary to corporately manage WWE and UFC, want is a product that’s accepted by the mainstream that attracts corporate sponsors. Once Endeavor hooks them in, then sponsors go everywhere. UFC have been littered with sponsors and corporate whoring for years, but now it’s happening to WWE. Ask any loyal UFC fan about the current product, and they’ll tell you the same thing that WWE has become. Too corporate, gouges on ticket prices, shows are getting harder to access thanks to increased paywalls, and nickels and dimes you on everything.

However, according to Nick Khan, ”we’ve increased prices appropriately with the marketplace”.

But WHO is the market place now?

Corporate sponsors and high rollers.

Have you attended any MLB, NFL, or NBA games lately? How are those ticket prices? How are the parking prices? How are the food prices? How are the merchandise prices? UFC is now in this class an overpriced experience, too.

If you’ve noticed the economy for the past 10 years, it has literally split into two classes. Corporate interests and upper class income earners, and then everyone else. Go look at the delinquency rates and charge-offs on credit right now. Consumers are struggling, but businesses are low on debt and operating like clockwork. Any increases in prices can be easily passed on to the Consumers, which is why their increases in utilities, property taxes, tariffs on imports, and other increased costs aren’t seen by them but are impacting Consumers directly through higher prices.

And WWE is passing along their increased costs to their Consumers, too.

And Disney/ESPN are, too, as the $29.99 and reportedly increasing price for 2026 will impact many WWE fans who just want to see the WWE’s best events which used to be priced at around $10-15 on Peacock and $9.99 on the previous WWE Network.

Anytime Netflix signs a big deal, their prices go up and in fact, they did right after they signed the WWE deal. Now that they are losing viewers, it will become an even larger expense to Netflix especially as they have desires to obtain the NFL or possibly Warner Bros, among many other content opportunities.

I still say that the full impact of selling Royal Rumble 2026 and Wrestlemania 43 hasn’t been felt by WWE’s fans just yet. Both the Rumble and Wrestlemania were events that many wrestling fans traveled to, both domestically and internationally. Just flying and then traveling around Saudi Arabia isn’t the easiest thing to do compared to other countries. Those were events that many WWE fans saved up to attend and used their vacation days as an annual ritual. Now, they can’t attend it because traveling to Saudi will be expensive and restrictive.

My main issue with TKO is by obtaining MORE money from TV deals, Corporate Sponsors, and Saudi Arabia, why do you need to raise ticket prices?

And why aren’t you paying wrestlers much more?

This decline in WWE’s Smackdown attendance is a “canary in the coal mine” moment. Wrestling fans are rejecting the secondary show and WWE is sustaining RAW’s attendance by placing their bigger stars there. However, that ship is sinking, too, as John Cena will be gone after 2025, CM Punk will be another year older, and Roman Reigns is unfortunately on the downslide of his career because Hollywood has his attention and he never got that big victory over the Rock, the last big accomplishment and feather in his cap.

If WWE fans are rejecting the gouging ticket prices for John Cena’s final event, they surely will reject the absurdity of ticket price gouging happening for Wrestlemania 42, WWE’s attempt to double-dip on Vegas money. Have you seen reports on Las Vegas lately? It has become a ghost town based on its price gouging. Travel, hotel occupancy, and overall visitor numbers are all down and there is no end in sight to course-correcting the price gouging causing that. And WWE has zero intentions of lowing prices for Wrestlemania 42, either.

Floor seats for Wrestlemania 42 are selling between $3,000 and $20,000 per night, depending on what type of packaged you’ve purchased (double those prices to attend both nights). $300-$900 per night in the nosebleeds, and double those if you attend both nights.

WWE and TKO are raising prices on a declining product… But with the massive TV deals firmly in place for the next 5 years, they’ll keep raising those prices because WWE already as its money and getting any fools to take the bait on live events is just gravy to them.

Want to take a stand? Boycott attending live events, and REFUSE to watch RAW and Smackdown on the official networks that air them. Pick and chose when you want to spend the money on PLE events, too, while cutting back on the overpriced WWE merchandise thanks to Fanatics. THAT simple, and bookmark NoDQ.com to keep up on what is happening as Aaron Rift has to pay for all of this overpriced WWE crap. Let him pay, and just enjoy our website… That simple.

Until you adequately respond to a price gouger as a fully informed and disciplined consumer, they’ll screw you every time.

WWE isn’t worthy of these higher prices UNLESS they can find a brand new draw in their developmental system who can replace the top stars like Cena, Reigns, Punk, Seth, or Cody. Nobody that WWE has added to their roster, nor anybody on the NXT roster, can replace them at this moment.

Rude awakening may be coming during 2029 when Netflix opts out of the RAW deal that they signed, and then there won’t be anyone willing to pay $500 million per year for a PLE infomercial, nor will anybody be willing to attend an event in-person due to quality and prices.

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But once Viacom obtained and then began hosting the WWE, viewership began to decline. It wasn’t just due to RAW switching networks from USA Network to TNN (later Spike TV), but the WWE product became over-exposed by attempting to host two separate 2-hour shows per week, Sunday Night Heat for 1 hour, and then having Pay Per Views for once a month. On top of that, WWE lost Stone Cold Steve Austin due to injury and he was gone from Survivor Series 1999 (remember the STUPID car angle) until returning to in-ring action during the Fall of 2000.

While the year 2000 appeared exciting with Triple H elevated to a new role, babyface Rock on top, the rise of Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho finding his groove, and an influx of many exciting free agents such as the Radicals (Saturn, Benoit, Guerrero, & Malenko), Tazz, and the Dudleys along with the likes of Edge and Christian getting better, WWE just wasn’t as compelling without Steve Austin on top. Wrestlemania 16 really impressed upon this, as the “McMahon in every corner” main event SUCKED and WWE’s attendance and RAW viewership began to decline. Yet, the ink was dry on that Viacom deal.

RAW joined TNN during September 2000 and from then on, RAW lost millions of viewers from there until 2005 when viewership bleeding stopped after the move of John Cena to RAW following Wrestlemania 21. On top of all of that, Viacom did not see strong advertising dollars from RAW being their flagship show because advertisers were scared to run ads on RAW thanks to pressure from outside political groups (notably Parents Television Council or PTC, which the WWE stable “Right to Censor” was based off of). Furthermore, RAW wasn’t proving to be a viewership boost for TNN/Spike’s other programming as anticipated and ditto for MTV where Sunday Night Heat resided.

Viacom took a bath on overpaying for a declining RAW television show, while also getting lowballed by advertisers. And think about this… By paying $500,000 per show for 52 weeks per year (source: L.A. Times) which equates to $26 million per year (versus what USA Network was paying at $100,000 per show at $5.2 million per year), Viacom ended up losing money on the deal and WWE later reverted back to NBC/Universal’s arms for RAW. Plus, Viacom purchased WWE stock and invested in the disastrous XFL season of 2001.

They purchased RAW for more than 5 times of what USA Network was paying… And then WWE declined after its September 2000 debut. Boy, that 2001 year was rough with the botched WCW/ECW invasion angle, 2002 botched the NWO angle and further pushed Triple H down our throats, Kane was unmasked and revealed as a necrophiliac, and many other bad moments that were aired on TNN/Spike TV with poor advertising rights and weak spillover viewership.

Fast-forward to 2024. NBC Universal was paying $200 million per year to host WWE Monday Night RAW. Netflix splashes in and inks a 10-year, $5 billion deal which equates to $500 million per year. That is a 150% INCREASE to host Monday Night RAW. Wow, holy crap…

So, how has WWE RAW performed on Netflix so far during 2025, as the show started off during January?

(Viewership numbers courtesy of Gerweck.net)

Date Average Viewership per Month
01-2025 3,875,000
02-2025 2,825,000
03-2025 3,020,000
04-2025 3,075,000
05-2025 2,700,000
06-2025 2,680,000
07-2025 2,675,000
08-2025 2,800,000
09-2025 2,440,000

Ouch. In just 9 months, RAW has lost over 1.4 million average viewers.

And keep in mind, these aren’t just United States numbers seen previously by Cable/Satellite viewers which were available to 70 million households. These are WORLDWIDE numbers spread amongst the 300 million Netflix subscribers globally.

OUCH!

1.4 million lost viewers… Sounds like Netflix is already feeling the effects of this deal and shall likely opt-out at the 5-year mark of this 10-year, $500 million per-year deal.

Sounds like they fell victim of the WINNER’S CURSE, too.

Remember, the announcement of the Netflix deal occurred during January 23rd, 2024. Newly formed TKO and Netflix likely negotiated this deal throughout 2023, as Netflix executives were probably seeing viewership increases that year, attendance boosts, and other increasing WWE metrics thanks to the Bloodline storyline hitting a peak through Wrestlemania 39. WWE was back on the upswing and on top of that, they were about to add The Rock as a TKO Board Member. It’s very likely that Netflix had inside-knowledge that the Rock was going to be featured somehow with the WWE during 2024. Hence, they whipped out the checkbook and made this massive 10-year, $5 billion deal to acquire RAW.

Netflix is also hosting Premium Live Events for WWE for international markets, as they were waiting for WWE’s Peacock deal to run out through the end of 2025 or when the WWE exhausted the number of PLE events hosted per year. Yet, the WWE screwed Netflix out of getting a chance at hosting PLEs in the United States which is what Netflix probably really wanted. Instead, TKO/WWE inked a 5-year, $1.6 billion deal to have ESPN+ host WWE’s big PLE events. That’s gotta hurt and really makes me think that the 5-year opt-out clause is happening.

As hoped, The Rock does indeed make his WWE return and was a MASSIVE part of Wrestlemania 40. Awesome, as the Netflix executives high-fived afterward… Then, the Rock only shows up following Wrestlemania 40 TWICE for the WWE (once on the RAW after WM 40, and then a random Fall 2024 PLE). However, the Rock would appear at the very first RAW on Netflix on January 6th, 2025. All is good, right? That should guarantee more appearances by the Rock during 2025, right? Well… About that. Rock barely did anything on the first Netflix RAW and the rumored set-up for Rock vs. Roman Reigns didn’t happen! In fact, the Rock would disappear and then re-appear on Smackdown only to hype his appearance at Elimination Chamber 2025 (both not on Netflix RAW). Then, the Rock would never be seen on WWE programming again…

But that’s fine… No Rock, no problem… Roman Reigns would be moved to RAW and contribute heavily to RAW on Netflix. Oops, he took an extended vacation following Wrestlemania 41 and then again to later film the new Street Fighter film. Even when you have Roman, he’ll cut promos more than wrestling an actual match. The ONLY time that Roman ever wrestled on RAW was on that FIRST RAW on Netflix on 1/6/25 when he defeated Solo Sikoa. After that, he only wrestled 5 more times and each of those were on PLE shows.

I mean, I guess having Seth Rollins and CM Punk aren’t bad… When are their biggest matches?

Oh that’s right, both of those wrestlers save their best for PLEs or NBC/Universal’s Saturday Night’s Main Event.

$500 million per year for RAW that lost an average of 1.4 million viewers already, world-wide, and does not feature WWE’s top superstars because they are part-timing it or saving their best for PLE/SNME.

Netflix LOST, bigtime, to the “Winner’s Curse”. They paid 150% more than the previous owner of RAW coverage and now in order to recoup those funds over the next 5-years, at least, they’ll either have to (a) reduce expenses elsewhere or (b) raise subscription rates. Netflix has almost $15 billion in debt, too, which will need to be financed and paid back as well.

On top of all of that, Netflix is eyeballing the NFL Sunday afternoon contract that is likely to be opted out of by the NFL during 2029, COINCIDENTALLY the last year of the first 5 years of WWE’s deal with Netflix. I theory, Netflix could opt out of the WWE deal through 2029 and then use that additional $500 million per year to invest in the NFL. I believe Netflix is going to break the bank to get this Sunday afternoon TV deal, and reportedly, the NFL wants to begin negotiations for this 2029 deal NOW rather than in the upcoming years that are closer to 2029. If Netflix obtains Sunday afternoon coverage for 2029, it’s a 100% guarantee that RAW gets dumped on its head when Netflix opts out of that 10-year deal by the 5th year.

Then, I believe, will be the REAL question on if the WWE could ever obtain $500 million per-year again from a television deal… We’ll have to see how warm Warner Bros. Discovery, which could be split up by then, feels about AEW in 4 years while NBC/Universal is always there to pick the WWE back-up. ESPN could go all-in with the WWE, too, if they are really feeling good about their ESPN+ deal to host PLEs. Skydance Paramount could become a shoulder to lean on with the WWE, as TKO inked a big deal with Paramount+ to begin hosting UFC events.

In my opinion, I just don’t see broadcast FOX and CBS losing their NFL deals. Their parent companies now have the capital to defeat Netflix, especially since CBS was acquired by the cash-rich Skydance company and the Ellison family that owns them. FOX stole over $80 billion from Disney years ago with the 20th Century FOX deal and the Murdoch family are loaded as well. Netflix has a ton of debt and high expenses to deal with without such financial backing. Personally, I don’t think that Netflix can endure a higher price point and they’ll have to boost subscription rates if they overpay for the NFL. Say, that’s another Winner’s Curse situation if the NFL, too, declines with viewership by becoming partially exclusive to a streamer versus a broadcast channel for Sunday afternoon NFL games.

Regardless of investing more in the NFL, the WWE deal is over with Netflix. Place a pin on this column… WWE has already deteriorated in weekly viewership on Netflix’s platform and I believe the WWE’s own mistakes of price gouging and selling out to the highest bidders (ESPN, Saudi) will cause its own fanbase to decline in a few years. Plus, without guys like the Rock or Roman consistently being there, fans are getting burned out on seeing Cody, Seth, and Punk weekly while there just isn’t a strong crop of developmental stars ready to rise-up and take top spots like the Ohio Valley Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling/early NXT call-ups did. I’m just not buying Bron Breakker, no matter how hard they try to push him (like having him turn on Seth Rollins).

It took 9 months, and the WWE has already under-performed on Netflix with RAW. Netflix bought when WWE’s Bloodline storyline was at its peak and then began broadcasting WWE after that peak. No Rock, not much Roman, and RAW is just an infomercial for PLEs airing on another streaming service.

Winner’s Curse has happened to Netflix and they still have 4 more years at paying WWE at least $2 billion before the 5-year opt-out clause hits.

Oops, WWE did it again… Contracts are contracts, and WWE got their money for the next 4 years after their first rough year with Netflix. Sucks to be compared to Viacom.

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ABC is owned by Disney… Since Kimmel was suspended for providing his first amendment rights on their broadcast airwaves, the response by consumers has been swift:

– Disney parks over the weekend were filmed and it appeared that fewer people were attending (and those parks price gouge like hell, too)

– Many celebrities, film producers, and writers were about to boycott ever working with Disney or any of its side studios.

– Various protests have been held outside Disney’s corporate offices or studios.

But last but not least…

– MASSIVE Disney+ or Hulu cancellations by subscribers, many of them being long-time users of the service. The website for Disney Plus literally crashed because there were so many people rushing into the website to cancel their subscription(s).

The latter point could have a big impact in the new ESPN+ app that was just launched, as that app is being bundled initially with Disney+ and Hulu. ESPN+ just streamed its first WWE event, WWE Wrestlepalooza, which the own ESPN website gave a “C” grade.

Look, we could get into the politics about “cancel culture”. ABC has a history of quickly censoring speech, opting to remove people off the air rather than (a) suspending them and (b) giving them some chance to make it right. Bill Maher was nailed from his Politically Correct show for something he said on-air, while Rosanne Barr was terminated from her comeback show for stuff she was tweeting against a public official. Whether you agree or not with Maher, Rosanne, or Kimmel, they should at least be given a chance to explain or even apologize if they went too far. ABC, especially when backed by Disney, is quick to swing that hatchet.

Except this time… MONEY SPOKE, as Disney was estimated to potentially lose $4 billion in potential revenue and stock equity based on the backlash from Jimmy Kimmel being suspended “indefinitely”. Of course, Disney could be getting themselves into more trouble, as they’ll need the merger of the NFL Network and ESPN to be approved by the same FCC and current administration.

But let’s get away from that… The POINT IS that you, the CONSUMER, had power and CHANGED THE OUTCOME.

THAT is what I was challenging all of in the prestigious Internet Wrestling Community to do in my LAST COLUMN. Grow a set of balls and STAND-UP to the greedy TKO corporation who is not only price gouging the hell out of you as a wrestling fan, but allowing vendors like Ticketmaster for live events and Fanatics for merchandise to rip you off while forcing you to be a customer of Netflix and Disney’s ESPN+ to further price gouge you. I estimated that your television viewership between 2024 and 2025 would cost $30 more per month to be a viewer of all things WWE.

But you can make TKO and WWE pay…

Now, I am NOT encouraging piracy… I am 100% against that. If you are stealing someone’s art or entertainment that they spent time and money to produce to be consumed, that is THEFT and that’s on your conscience for doing it. Plus, if you get caught, that’s your fault…

No, what I’m encouraging is to DO WITHOUT.

Don’t watch RAW, as that will harm WWE’s relationship with Netflix and possibly cause the 5-year clause to be enacted by Netflix. Clips of RAW are all over Social Media and YouTube by WWE.

Don’t watch Smackdown, as that will impact WWE’s ability to push up cable/satellite TV rights which costs you more money with your cable/satellite service. Clips of Smackdown are all over Social Media and YouTube by WWE.

Don’t obtained ESPN+, period, or at least for all events. Maybe just buy the service for the big 3 Pay Per Views (Wrestlemania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam). By the way, clips of PLEs are also all over Social Media and YouTube by the WWE.

And if you don’t like Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania 43 going to Saudi Arabia, then don’t watch those shows. Saudi Arabia paid $100 million, reportedly, for Wrestlemania 43. Do you think that money will go to any of the wrestlers? Will earning more there cause the WWE to lower its prices on other products? NO IT WON’T!!!!

Screw the WWE’s merchandise. Their toys suck, their shirts are cheaply made, and the replica belts are overpriced and take up too much of your space! They are price gouging the hell out of you.

It’s 2025… It’s easy to follow a wrestling promotion without cutting off your arm and leg to do so. Just follow WWE’s official social media accounts, YouTube account, and follow great wrestling websites like NoDQ to keep up on the latest and greatest news/results. Literally that simple and you’ll save tons of TIME and MONEY.

Did you see the prices yet for the 2-day packages for Wrestlemania 42, which was moved to Las Vegas from New Orleans in order for TKO to squeeze additional bucks out of this event? In case you missed it… (Kudos to PWInsider for the information)

Section A1 on floor – $8,998.00

400 Section – $854.15

THAT is a rip off… On top of all of that, Las Vegas has been price gouging the hell out of visitors on flights, nickeling and diming people on hotel rooms, travel, fees, higher food and beverage prices, and fewer complimentary items for staying in the city. Visitation has been significantly decreasing this year, which is why, I believe, Las Vegas overpaid to give the WWE a second straight year there for Wrestlemania. Had to be a massive check, as the event moved out of New Orleans and they were heartbroken over it. However, the cost to Las Vegas to get WWE back for a second straight year is going to be eaten by not just anyone attending Wrestlemania 42 next year, but anyone traveling to Vegas right now.

Again, DO WITHOUT… Make the WWE pay for letting the greedy bastards at Endeavor causing their TKO holding company to screw YOU, the consumer, out of your hard earned money. After all, if was YOUR loyal support of the WWE for years that built this great promotion for Endeavor to purchase. Shouldn’t you get rewarded for your loyalty rather than being price gouged even further?

WWE has seen massive revenue increases for its new NBC/Universal Smackdown deal, Netflix RAW deal, CW brand new deal for NXT, various Saudi event deals including Rumble and Wrestlemania, deals with United States cities to host WWE events, deal with Fanatics to distribute merchandise, and SO MANY SPONSORS all over the WWE ring and pimped all over each WWE event.

When will the cost savings be translated to you, the loyal WWE fan?

When will wrestlers get paid more?

WWE released wrestlers this year, yet they had a metric ton of cash coming in to afford contracts like R-Truth that were larger because he was a long-time company man who earned multiple promotions. They still cut many wrestlers or let their deals expire.

You, as a fan, are paying more to simply watch the WWE than ever before. You’re paying more to attend WWE events more than ever before. Merchandise costs are BRUTAL. And you’re also asked to watch 6-8 hours of weekly WWE content on 3 different platforms and then watch PLEs once a month on an entirely different platform.

And don’t give me Vince McMahon “looked out for the fans”. It is a FACT that Vince McMahon started the deals with Saudi Arabia. It is a FACT that Vince McMahon forced the sale of the WWE to Endeavor. Literally the same week that the Netflix deal was announced, Vince McMahon’s lawsuit with Janel Grant dropped which means that Vince McMahon was there negotiating that deal. Fact is that he switched the classic $9.99 WWE Network to Peacock, which cost up $5 more if you wanted it commercial free than it did before.

FACT is that Vince McMahon couldn’t charge the higher ticket prices because his Creative SUCKED during the 2010s and the COVID-19 pandemic eroded his live events during the early 2020s. The bounce-back after the pandemic plus the Bloodline actually drawing caused the live event boom that you see to day. FACT is that ticket prices for WWE were steadily going up during 2022, 2023, and through early 2024 when Vince was around to make executive decisions. While Vince didn’t put sponsors on the holy ring, he sure as hell put them on everything else. Every Pay Per View had a sponsor, and wrestlers where whoring themselves out for sponsors. I still have nightmares about the Miz and Dolph Ziggler doing those KFC commercials.

And, Vince McMahon had multiple NDA settlements with multiple women. Why do you McMahon marks constantly defend this bad man?

Vince McMahon sold to Endeavor because he wanted their help to make WWE a cash cow just like UFC had become. FACT. And that includes doing the same exact thing that UFC has been doing for years, and that has been equally price gouging their fans.

So, wrestling fans, GROW SOME SACK and learn do DO WITHOUT…

Disney fans are doing that right now, and unlike the WWE’s situation of just purely being too corporate and price gouging, the situation with ABC and Jimmy Kimmel is heavily entangled with the Federal Government. You’ve got battles over broadcast licenses, billion dollar mergers, NFL rights, and a backlash from the other political side to how the other political side responded on the way…

This WWE protest over its corporate greed is easy by comparison… Your actions just screw the WWE and force it to change its ways.

– Not watching RAW lowers Netflix viewership, threatens the 5-year opt-out.

– Not watching Smackdown lowers USA Network’s viewership, threatens the next Smackdown deal.

– Not watching all of the WWE’s PLEs on ESPN+ causes Disney to re-think their app and how its being priced.

– Not attending WWE events causes live events to be unprofitable, especially in relation to larger arena lease agreements.

– By not purchasing merchandise, it causes inventories to pile up and forces price cuts to clear out excess inventory (called a “clearance sale”).

Oh, you don’t think that you have power right now?

Let me remind you of these FACTS:

(a) Netflix has over $14 billion in debt
(b) Comcast reportedly has around $100 billion in debt (holy cow!)
(c) Disney has over $36 billion in debt
(d) Endeavor has over $7 billion in debt, while TKO itself has around $3 billion in debt

GEE, why is it that each of these corporations are raising prices for their services or squeezing in as many advertisers as possible?

If you keep letting them take your money, you deserve of feeling the effects of “No Vaseline”.

Don’t watch RAW, don’t watch Smackdown, don’t attend live events, don’t buy merchandise, sparingly watch PLEs, and just follow the WWE through its own social media accounts or YouTube. And then, of course, following great websites like NoDQ to remain informed and let our good buddy Aaron Rift “try before you buy” on your behalf. Let him pay for this overpriced crap and then you can check it out later.

You’ll save MONEY and TIME with that simple plan, while teaching TKO a valuable lesson that WRESTLING FANS MATTER and your corporate greed sucks!

Again, if you don’t believe me, just watch Jimmy Kimmel return tomorrow night DESPITE the massive corporate and governmental pressure that is being applied. Doesn’t matter, consumers WON.

You can win too, wrestling fans, if you just learn to DO WITHOUT on WWE products and services.

And trust me, the quality of WWE programming through 2025 is NOT worth the high prices that they are charging. Creative peaked through 2023 and WWE has been riding on the fumes of that ever since.

You’re welcome for the sound advice, as always.

Follow me on Blue Sky!

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post MR. TITO: WWE Fans Could Learn from the ABC/Disney Situation with Late-Night Comedian Jimmy Kimmel appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.

Who are those new customers, you might ask?

– Netflix for RAW – 10 years, $5 billion ($500 million per year)

– Disney/ESPN for ESPN’s new streaming service – 5 years, $1.6 billion ($320 million per year)

– NBC/Universal – USA Network for Smackdown – 5 year, $1.4 billion ($280 million per year)

– CW Network for NXT – 5 year, up to $125 million (up to $25 million per year)

– Fanatics taking over WWE Shopzone (details undisclosed)

– Saudi Arabia: Over $25 million per show, with Royal Rumble 2026 likely fetching a higher price

– Any large city who wants to pay extra to post WWE Premium Live Events

– Any Corporate Sponsor who wants to plaster their ads on WWE shows, the ring, or digital screens roaming throughout the arena.

– International TV markets

In other words, NOT YOU.

THAT is what you need to realize…

In fact, YOU have become customers of Netflix, ESPN, whatever cable/satellite/streaming provider has USA Network, CW Network, and Fanatics thanks to WWE’s massive deals.

You’ve gone from paying WWE directly for their $9.99 WWE Network since 2014 to becoming a NBC/Universal customer (which was almost the same price, actually cheaper if you like ads) to becoming an ESPN customer to pay $29.99 per month to watch Premium Live Events. This HIGH pricepoint for ESPN is thanks to them overpaying for NFL, NBA, NHL, and WWE content.

Liked RAW on your cable/satellite package? Well, now you’ll have to be a subscriber to Netflix and their prices went up thanks to the WWE deal.

Liked WWE Shopzone? Well, enjoy whatever Fanatics wants to charge you. They’ve been gobbling up sports deals with various leagues and getting a real stranglehold on the market. The merchandise prices that I saw at Royal Rumble 2025 were ridiculous!

While WWE has brand new customers, YOU have become a customer for multiple other companies. Look what they made you do!

In fact, Netflix, ESPN, Fanatics, and others are transferring their higher amounts paid to WWE through increases in their prices. That’s right, YOU ARE PAYING FOR THEIR DEALS. And non-WWE fan Netflix or ESPN users shall become paying for the WWE deals, too, just as WWE fans will now be helping to subsidize expensive NBA and NFL deals on the ESPN streaming service.

That’s kind of like this idea of a tariff, which you are seeing pushed heavily during 2025… Tariff is actually a tax paid by an American company who imports raw materials or goods from another country. United States customs agents reviews the shipped goods at the ports and assesses tariffs or taxes to be paid by the American company (not the foreign country, as ignorantly claimed). With higher tax expenses to be paid, what does the American company do? They pass those higher expenses onto their customers via higher price increases. (NOTE FROM TITO: I studied International Economics in college, so this isn’t a political attack, just relaying a recent example of increased expenses being passed on to the consumer through prices).

Any time a company sees higher expenses for anything, be it taxes or tariffs, higher regulatory costs, higher energy costs, higher water/electricity costs, natural disasters to crops or other damage, higher employee costs, etc… They attempt to push on those higher prices onto YOU, their customers. If you’ve taken business mathematics at the college level, there’s a simple formula taught up front that shows Price = Cost + Mark-up. Thus, if a producer’s costs go up, then prices could go up.

But there’s another factor to all of this… DEMAND.

How much you desire a product, expectations of the economy, and income also act as determinants for how much of a good/service is consumed but also what is the highest price that you’re willing to pay. In microeconomics, there is a term called “elasticity”, which is defined as the responsiveness of someone to CHANGE. In other words, if the producer RAISED prices, would the consumer notice? Or would they care? If their tastes/preferences were so strong for a product or maybe an individual is doing well financially, they could be OK paying the higher prices… Otherwise, raising prices could have adverse and opposite effects to harm revenue.

Since 2020, the WWE has greatly improved its product thanks to the Bloodline storyline while also pushing many superstars to climb the ladder rather than Vince’s old model of pushing just one or two guys too strong and disregarding the rest of the roster. Through 2025, WWE has been doing RECORD business on ticket sales and merchandise, despite them raising prices… So if WWE raises prices on both tickets and merchandise yet sales revenue and numbers purchased keeps going up, why that’s a sign that demand by WWE fans are going up. Now, whether that is due to tastes/preferences, incomes doing well, or expectations of the economy as a reason is to be determined. In my opinion, I think tastes/preferences for WWE’s product is strong while there are many doing well since the 2020 pandemic and recession.

The economy has me worried, moving forward… Since the 2020 pandemic, but I’d also argue in the decade before it, we’ve had a “tale of two cities” kind of economy. Those at the top are doing extremely well while those at the bottom are not. Inflation REALLY hurt lower income families, as prices increased at a faster rate than nominal incomes brought home. Meanwhile, businesses took advantage of lower interest rates during 2020-2022 to invest in capital to make their companies more automated and leaner than ever, while also buying back shares to make them even richer and dominant as the primary shareholder. Heading into 2025, too, housing, credit card delinquencies, money held in savings accounts, and other product/service sales dropping due to higher prices were signs of an economy wobbling. Now, we have higher taxes on imports (tariffs) that could deliver the knockout punch to the consumer who has been drowning in higher grocery costs for the past 3 years and has accumulated lots of credit card debt trying not to drown from inflation.

Getting back to the WWE, even if the economy recesses or declines in WWE’s quality drives tastes/preferences downward, WWE is still locked into most of these deals for another 5 years, at least. Those are guaranteed funds to the WWE’s revenue streams, too.

BUT – What happens long-term to the WWE?

Eventually, you hit that point where WWE fans switch from being “inelastic” or not responses to prices of live events/Netflix/ESPN/USA Network to becoming very “elastic” or very responsive to price increases. For example, fans are quite vocal about paying $10-15 per month on Peacock to watch WWE Premium Live Events (plus some archived stuff) to paying $29.99 per month. That is doubling or tripling the monthly payment. So how much of that price tag will cause loyal WWE fans to walk away? Or maybe they just switch to paying ONLY for the months of the bigger PLEs events? Just pay for January, April, and August and that rounds out to $90.00 per year, but if you did that already with Peacock, you were paying $30-45 per year… There is that doubling/tripling effect again.

The entire reason why WWE Network was created during early 2014 was due to sagging Pay Per View buyrates by the WWE. Why? Well, as I so wrote eloquently around that time, WWE PRICED OUT their fans with increased prices AND increased quantity of PPVs that they wanted their fans to purchase. Remember when we had 2 PPVs per month thanks to the brand split? So what happened? Well, fans began PIRATING Pay Per Views on illegal streaming sites… By the way, those illegal streaming sites still exist and have been capturing NFL fans who REFUSE to pay for the overpriced NFL Sunday Ticket package that was on DirecTV but is even more ridiculously priced on YouTube TV.

WWE Network was created, at the wonderful price point of $9.99, to counter that market. Fans no longer wanted to pay $45-60 per month with WWE Pay Per Views, but they found an appetite to pay just $10 per month. What WWE found is that fans went from occasionally buying a Pay Per View to watching EVERY Premium Live Event (PLE) on WWE Network. Thus, revenue lost on the Pay Per View prices and revenue was gained by their LOYAL wrestling fanbase SAVING MONEY and being WILLING to buy WWE products that WWE could market to them on all of the PLEs they were now watching.

See how that works? While WWE did lose fans during the late 2010s thanks to poor quality RAW/Smackdown programming (2 million RAW viewers lost), the actual $ spent per fan WENT UP. Why? Because the WWE Network BUILT LOYALTY with longtime WWE fans and treated any newer fans joining with a cost effective product to enjoy daily or for monthly PLEs. THAT loyalty is why WWE has been getting away with increasing prices on BOTH live event tickets and merchandise combined with all of the casual fans hopping on the bandwagon since WWE improved its quality since 2020. So far, loyal fans + bandwagon riding fans have absorbing the higher prices… BUT, I’d strongly argue that both Wrestlemania 41 and SummerSlam 2025 could have had more WWE fans in attendance if their prices weren’t too ridiculously high. HOWEVER, WWE made their money on the suckers who were willing to pay those excessively high prices.

Speaking of live events… WWE is receiving large incentive deals to host big PLE events in various large cities. One would think that with those big city deals made, WWE wouldn’t have to charge a higher ticket price. WRONG! The are charging ridiculous prices right now, especially for PLEs. Again, WWE is purely price gouging its loyal fanbase and any casual bandwagon riders who find it trendy to attend WWE events at the moment.

Do you see how WWE treats you, fans? They get paid a massive lump sum by New York, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Las Vegas, thus making Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, and SummerSlam instantly profitable… But WWE still charges you increasingly high ticket prices for events in those areas. Hell, if I was a local TAX PAYER in those surrounding cities, I’d request a discount to attend these higher price WWE events because my city’s tax dollars overpaid the WWE to host an event there. Oh, and the event is happening in the PUBLICLY FINANCED stadium, too… So damn, double tax whammy for locals in the city!

Sure, the TKO stock price is going to do well… The stock price closed at $100 on opening day during September 2023 and just closed this Friday at $163.29. These “new” customers of the WWE will provide revenue streams and shall pad WWE’s Financial Statements to help produce amazing Net Income, Earnings Per Share, and Return on Assets/Equity numbers for the next 5-10 years as WWE uses Netflix, Saudi Arabia, Disney/ESPN, NBC/Universal, Fanatics, etc. uses them as ATM machines.

But what happens when fans stop attending live events? Bound to happen, as NoDQ’s Virtue points out, WWE is top heavy with main eventers in their top 30s or at various ages in their 40s. Some of those guys will cling onto their top spots for deal life, while it’s a debate if WWE has good replacements for them or not that are ready to go. Sorry, but I need more faith that Jacob Fatu or Bron Breakker are as good as Cena, Lesnar, Roman, Rollins, Cody, and others. If WWE sees a drop in attendance, then big cities will PAY LESS and thus a ticket price crash will adversely affect the WWE financially.

Furthermore, what happens if customers of Netflix and ESPN feel it’s too overpriced and leave the app? One thing that is heavily noticed is that younger fans aren’t exactly into sports like previous generations. NBA, NHL, and MLB have all seen their numbers drop, but they are each propped by the 35+ age group who still loves those sports and really appreciates the NFL too. Same age group props up the WWE, too…

And let’s be honest about ESPN… It’s a sinking ship. Viewership has been dropping HARD for them during the past 15 years and has some partial correlation for cable’s downfall, particularly with male viewership. They have angered fans for years based on the tone of broadcasts, political bias, and the total blowhards brought onto sets to spout their opinions loudly. The quality has dropped hard for ESPN’s programming and caused much of their viewership to find sports-related content elsewhere. Hence the rise of Barstool Sports and Pat McAfee, which now FOX and ESPN are paying top dollar to delivery content.

ESPN buying the NFL Network and Redzone along with WWE’s PLE streaming has fans scared because they’ve seen what ESPN has done to sports and the presentation of sports for the past 15 years (I’d argue quality has been dropping since the mid 2000s). Backing ESPN is their corporate owner, Disney, who has heavily botched the Star Wars franchise, began to botch their Marvel franchise since 2019, and are ruining their own great stuff from their vault (see recent Snow White debacle). Disney has almost $43 billion in DEBT.

Do you see where I’m going here? That $29.99 ESPN price is only going to INCREASE, my friends… NOT just for the expensive NBA, NFL, NHL, WWE, or College Football content that it hosts. Actually, payments to each of them are FIXED and should thus not cause any inflation… OHHHHHHHH NOOOOO… Prices for Disney crap always goes up, as they push THEIR FAILURES onto you, the customer, through various price hikes. Have you been to F’N Disney World or Disney Land lately? While both have always been expensive, they are REALLY expensive now and nickel and dime you everywhere on that trip.

Netflix has $15 billion in DEBT… Now, they have much more subscribers to their service, along with merchandising of their original shows (Stranger Things, Squid Games, etc.) that causes a ton of revenue to come in… But, what happens when their quality falls off? How will they pay back that debt? Oh yeah, raising the prices of their service. Once again, you’re NOT paying for just WWE content on Netflix… You’re paying for the rest of the network PLUS any expenses that Netflix is willing to push onto you.

For you to be a WWE fan during 2026, here is what you’ll pay per month:

ESPN streaming service: $29.99

Netflix: $7.99 with ads, $17.99 without ads, but pay for additional users. $24.99 premium for up to 6 simultaneous users

USA Network: Comcast and DirecTV seem to start around $85 per month for their basic Cable TV package. From personal experience, Sling’s Blue package costs $45.99 per month to get the USA Network to watch Smackdown.

CHEAPEST ROUTE = $7.99 + $29.99 + $45.99 = $83.95 per month, $1,007 per year

Basically, by WWE joining with ESPN, they are costing each WWE fan to pay $120 to $180 per year extra (assuming they remain monthly paying customers).

WWE’s choices to make money for themselves and to please shareholders is costing their fans MORE money.

Are you seriously OK about that, wrestling fans?

And let me ask one more question, my brothers and sisters…

Are PRO WRESTLERS receiving any RAISES in their salaries or payoffs thanks to these deals?

If my back was bumping in that ring on an ESPN streaming service that nets my employer $280 million MORE per year, I think that I’d say something… Maybe that’s just me?

When Jesse Ventura during 1986, just before Wrestlemania 2, stood up on a chair and challenged the wrestlers to group together and unionize, that was easily squashed because Vince McMahon was the singular boss and his strategy was to overpay the top guy to keep the rest of the locker room in line. Thus, if the top guy wouldn’t unionize and the rest of the locker room tried, Vince could just keep the top guy and fire the rest of the locker room and easily replace them. Hence why the late Hulk Hogan stooged on Jesse Ventura.

The model has changed… Endeavor majority owned TKO is now in charge and they are aggressively seeking revenue, which is why these deals are getting increasingly more lucrative for WWE but less cost effective for the fans. Sure, ESPN will give WWE $1.6 billion to stream live PLEs, but will do so at pushing that expense through higher prices to paying customers.

BUT for the wrestlers, TKO has that same aggressive thought… KEEP EXPENSES DOWN! Twice now, Braun Strowman has found out that he was “overpaid” in TKO’s eyes. GONE! How about R-Truth… Oh, I’m sorry, “Ron Killings”. Remember why he was terminated? He was deemed to have been paid too much based on output. Had fans not have rioted online about the termination, he wouldn’t have been brought back. Trust me on this one, TKO executives are furious about re-signing him and that has probably affected how he has been used since his return.

For SummerSlam 2025, why don’t you count how many Slim Jims tables were used… Yeah, that might take a moment, provided the many TLC, no disqualification, street fights, and cage matches they had that pulled out many tables. For ANY wrestler who was slammed through a Slim Jim table, did they receive ANY dollars from that deal?

Hell, look at that UGLY WWE ring these days, FULL of ads. Anytime they get slammed on that ring, do the wrestlers receive any of that ad money?

Nope.

TKO and WWE would argue that these TV deals, sponsors, city/Saudi payoffs help pay for the wrestlers… Really? And tickets and merchandise bought don’t? YOUR WRESTLERS are drawing in the customers for the WWE and TKO to price gouge. And now, YOUR WRESTELRS are drawing in the customers for Netflix and ESPN to price gouge.

Wrestler salaries are NOT increasing.

And in case you haven’t noticed, WWE has been pushing MORE guys at the top. They are no longer Roman Reigns-dependent as they probably were through 2023. Since TKO arrived and jettisoned Vince McMahon OUT of creative, WWE has a more productive model of pushing multiple main eventers versus Vince’s older model of just pushing a singular guy or two at the top (Hogan, Austin/Rock, Cena, and Lesnar/Roman). In my opinion, I like Triple H’s model of having and pushing multiple main eventers at once, but it plays right into the hands of the big Endeavor/TKO corporation who wants ALL wrestlers to be equal. Endeavor did that with UFC, as nobody is allowed to stand out, and thus they can exploit fighters with sluggish growing payouts too. Endeavor/TKO wants to push brand, brand, brand so that the logo draws more than a person.

So thus, the top guys are now expendable in the WWE… Anybody can be released unexpectedly at any time. That, or their contract negotiations will see lower offers than expected.

If you’re a wrestler in the WWE locker room and getting slammed on those ad-heavy rings or through Slim Jim Tables as you’re being broadcasted on the $500 million per year Netflix, $280 million per year USA Network or NBC, or $320 million per year ESPN streaming service… Maybe, just maybe, you ought to rethink how you and you’re fellow wrestlers operate.

And look behind you, too… TKO is heavily investing in WWE’s talent scouting and developmental system. While this system was initially created to replace older wrestlers who couldn’t perform like they used to, now it could be used for financial reasons. If a veteran becomes too overpaid, their younger replacement could be waiting in the wings.

Oh, and by the way, the Corporate Tax Rate just became permanent at 21%, as it could have become 35% for TKO if the Tax Cut from 2019 was allowed to expire after 2025. So thus for the wrestlers, the TKO/WWE has that breathing room to PAY YOU MORE as wrestlers!

While I think that Vince McMahon was pure pond scum and as NDA + lawsuit allegations are showing, a really bad form of pond scum… The older WWE corporation was run by him with his ideas. While Vince loved money, he liked packed houses, too… He also had an eye for quality control, such as not placing ads that much on his rings or other places in the arena. While Vince was becoming more corporate with time and started to cheapening up his WWE brand here or there, he’s not as aggressive as Nick Khan or the rest of the Endeavor folks who want to monetize everything.

The FACT is that Wrestling Fans AND Pro Wrestlers are getting RIPPED off with these massive WWE deals. What is happening only benefits the TKO Corporation, who owns WWE, but hurts longtime WWE fans financially. Here’s the cycle:

WWE <– Corporation with a service <– Wrestling Fans

Do you see it yet?

WWE keeps inserting a middle man between you and them. During 2014, you paid the WWE directly for WWE Network and ShopZone for WWE merchandise (granted, WWE paid vendors to perform that service for them, but both were managed by them). Much, much, cheaper… Now, your money is paid to ESPN, which covers non-WWE stuff, and also to Fanatics to distribute merchandise. WWE has made YOU become their customer, and opens the door for them to price gouge you. Trust me, you’ll be eating part of Disney’s extremely high debt for years. Enjoy it!

Folks, you’re getting ripped off on everything… Recent tariffs will only pile on the allowed price gouging that has been going on for years. Utilities, colleges, healthcare providers, sports, and energy companies are anti-trust exempt and can screw with you through restricting quantity and price gouging. Do you enjoy paying back those college loans? You’re getting ripped off! The CEO of Kroger grocery chains literally admitted in court, as he was trying to acquire another grocery chain, that they were charging well above retail on necessity items. Why? Because they could… We’ve let these bigger companies and their supply chain advantages dominate the market place without any challenge. Complete unchecked monopoly-like power.

WWE is just another corporate brick in the wall, looking to jerk off shareholders by obtaining new revenue from corporate clients. Meanwhile, those corporate clients such as ESPN, Netflix, Fanatics, etc. now have YOU as their customer and they can price gouge YOU.

Through 2025, it has become much more expensive to remain a pro wrestling fan and that sucks thanks to corporate greed.

Follow me on Blue Sky!

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post MR. TITO: The TRUTH About WWE’s ESPN Deal to Host PLEs and Other Blood-Sucking Corporate Deals appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.

Well, RAW being on Netflix seems to have created a shock for many wrestling fans seeing at least 9 ads splashed all over the ring canvas. There’s one in the center, a centered ad for each side of the ring (4), and then 4 at each point of the ring in the corners. With one of those sponsors being Hulk Hogan’s Great American Beer, that created additional indigestion for wrestling fans for other reasons.

“Too many ads” inside the ring, as if angels came from the sky to deliver that canvas and it must be a pure as humanly possible… Even though blood and beer have been sprayed all over it repeatedly…

Here’s the thing, folks… I think you’re complaining about the ads inside the ring because you have NOTHING else to complain about with the WWE. They’re feeding you quality entertainment right now. Freakin’ Penta jumps ship from AEW to WWE, and suddenly, he looks like a well polished worker who can improvise inside the ring. CM Punk and Cody Rhodes suddenly improved when the joined the WWE, too. Bloodline has been killing it for the past 2-3 years, we have the Rock involved again, John Cena is back, NXT is exciting to watch again, new superstars like Gunther and Bron Breakker are making it, and we’re witnessing arguably the 2 most talented females ever at the same time with Rhea and Bianca with amazing veterans surrounding them.

Right now, the NBA has ads on EVERYTHING… Many on the court, many on the backboard and the structure holding the backboard, on the players’ jerseys, on the scoring table, all over the television broadcasts, and everywhere throughout the arena. But is professional basketball getting complaints JUST about their ads? No! Their players force trades and team up to play with each other, load management, jacking up too many 3 pointers, and a perceived lack of toughness has caused NBA to lose like 24% of its viewership year-over-year.

But WWE numbers are up… Attendance is up despite higher prices (we discussed this in my last column), viewership is steady on Cable/Satellite but higher on socials and YouTube, and merchandise is selling like crazy.

Why does WWE have ads suddenly on the ring? Well, for RAW, it’s a matter of Netflix paying $500 million per year. Very simple as that and they’re probably getting the bulk of the money of the ads on the ring.

WWE is more corporate now… WWE went from a publicly traded company that was mostly owned by Vince McMahon and his family to now being mostly owned by Endeavor and the company that bought them last year. Just as purchasing the UFC was expensive for Endeavor, so was purchasing WWE. What’s an easy way to help paydown that debt? Put ads on everything. UFC is seriously littered what advertisements and do UFC fans complain? No, they want someone’s teeth to get knocked in or to see someone tap out in an important fight. Ads become secondary if you’ve seen them for a while.

The point with UFC is that if the product inside the heavily sponsored Octagon is still great, why complain about the ads?

Problem is that the NBA’s product ISN’T great right now, particularly the regular season, and hence having “too many ads” is a complaint there.

For the WWE, having “too many ads” seems like it’s a new concept, but it’s not. WWE has had lots of advertising here, there, and everywhere for their live events, TV shows, and selling of their own products.

For example, WWE RAW was just on USA Networks. Didn’t we all complain that the 3-hour RAW that we’ve endured for the past 10 years had TOO MANY commercials? I seem to remember that and several websites actually timed the actual on-screen WWE content versus ads run.

And hasn’t the WWE been taking sponsors for their events for YEARS? I remember when shows were just called “In Your House” during the mid-1990s and they always had a sponsor for the event. Furthermore with those sponsors, WWE would lend their wrestlers for commercials for those very sponsors. Lots of wrestlers eating Snickers bars or playing with toys that were sponsoring PPVs that were later renamed to PLEs.

For the past 10 years, WWE has revamped its ringside. Gone is cloth that surrounds most of the ring and now we have LED billboards. The ringposts often have LED stuff on them, too. The ring barrier now has LED boards on them, too. What do each of those new ringside decorations have in common? THEY RUN ADS THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT!!!!!

Anytime the WWE rents out an arena or stadium for an event, they have control of the scoreboard and other electronics per the lease agreement. What does the WWE run on those? ADS!

How about this one? Since Vince McMahon Jr. bought the company during the early 1980s, what has he tried to sell you with his television shows?

– Buying tickets to his WWE shows.
– Spending money to buy Pay Per Views (later WWE Network)
– Merchandise, merchandise, merchandise

You’d think that the WWE has just been a front to sell other products besides the actual in-ring action. Thus, if you’re reading this in a room while wearing a WWE licensed shirt with replica title belts hanging everywhere, YOU FELL FOR THEIR ADVERTISEMENTS!

Wrestlers get a small portion of those merchandise dollars, as proven fact from many wrestlers testifying that.

Snap into a Slim Jim! Ultimate Warrior and then Macho Man Randy Savage did those ads during the 1990s, and now LA Knight and Biana Belair does them now.

The Miz and Dolph Ziggler did KFC commercials together while they were feuding.

Come on…

Oh, but the precious canvas inside the ring is SO SACRED!

Give me a freakin’ break.

Brock Lesnar was allowed to have ads on his trunks. Yes, I know that only he was allowed to do it, but he still did it and it still happened. So while the precious ring canvas did not have ads when Brock Lesnar performed, he was getting body slammed on that bare ring with ads on his shorts!

So give me a break on this “WWE ring has too many ads on it” crap.

Especially for this homerun point… You really think that ads inside the ring are the tipping point for you?

How about the FACT that advertisers have been controlling the WWE’s content for YEARS?

Can someone tell me WHY Mandy Rose had to abruptly leave the WWE again? Yes, she had a side hustle and was doing adult things on that side hustle, but the main reason she left the company was due to Mattel complaining to the WWE about her. Seriously… The SAME company who allowed their toy buyers the ability to strip Barbie and Ken naked while creating action figures for Mandy Rose that were scantily clad had a problem with her doing some adult stuff on the side. Go look up Mandy’s action figures from Mattel and tell me that there isn’t hypocrisy with a straight face. She legitimately has Barbie’s figure but with wrestling gear on.

The whole PG era was due to advertisers applying pressure on Comcast/NBC/Universal and if WWE wanted to return to USA Network, it had to clean things up and allow their shows to sell MORE ADS.

Remember the Mountain Dew Pitch Black sponsored match between LA Knight and Bray Wyatt? That was just 2 years ago and that was Bray’s last match, as Uncle Howdy jumped and missed hitting Knight with a splash from like 3 feet away.

So spare me on the ads inside the RAW ring right now on Netflix.

Think about this for a second… If the WWE can make more money on advertisements, then maybe it’s less that they can gouge from you?

Maybe that doesn’t feel like the right idea for a second as WWE is jacking up ticket prices, but maybe when business starts to decline, they can absorb more of a ticket price decline with more advertisements around? The more revenue streams that the WWE has, the less reliance on you.

My only worry with “more ads” is that any large dollar investors expect something in return. That goes for pro wrestling but also politics. “No such thing as a free lunch”, as anyone who pays significant amounts of money wants something in return.

Until I see “Bloodline brought to you by Carl’s Jr.”, the ads inside the ring are just an extension of what the WWE has already done with advertisements.

WWE, itself, is a marketing machine. RAW and Smackdown are there to convince you to buy into other WWE products such as live events, financially investing in PLEs, or buying merchandise. Their Cable/Satellite, Network, or Syndicated shows have at least 1/3 of the airtime covered with advertisements if not having sponsors read during the show. Corporate sponsors control what the WWE does and presents. Lastly, everywhere outside of the ring is full of the sponsors, so why not inside the ring too?

Spare me on this sudden outrage on the RAW ring being full of ads for Netflix. You’ve been swallowing advertisements from WWE content for years, many of you have been enduring it for decades. And then when you look around your room and see all of the WWE toys, replica belts, and other merchandise, YOU appear to be easily falling for WWE’s own advertisements. So if you’re falling for WWE’s own marketing machine, then they have the analytics that you’ll fall for any advertisement who wants to pay WWE (or Netflix) money.

For all of the online nitpickers out there… Stop complaining about everything and micro-managing your own opinions. Just let it go and enjoy the quality production that the WWE is finally handing you. Yeah, the 2010s were rough to get through, but Vince McMahon is now gone and others are now getting empowered. Want to keep this current management in place as well as finding new ways to pay wrestlers? Then let the WWE find new ways to drive up revenue. But the in-ring quality is going UP for the WWE right now versus having quality erosion like the NBA is enduring.

You have it so good right now that your best complain is the number of ads inside the ring of a show that is conveniently airing on the streaming app that you’ve had for years. Geesh.

Follow me on Blue Sky!

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post MR. TITO: Why Is Everyone Complaining About WWE RAW on Netflix’s Ring Having Advertisements? appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.

It’s been a week since WWE’s debut on Netflix. A week to simmer down, collect thoughts, and wonder what the “product” progressing into the “Netflix Era” will look like. Off the rip, WWE’s Netflix debut was a hit with the numbers, averaging 2.6 million households. As reported by the WWE that’s 116% higher than RAW’s 2024 average. But will those numbers be sustainable? I don’t necessarily think so.

The debut RAW on Netflix featured just four matches in the three hours it was on the air. Of course they had to get in the promo segments, guest appearances, and special guests. But I fear the lack of actual wrestling on the program could be a turn off for viewers. After all, this is a wrestling show. With the red-carpet hoopla out of the way, I’m predicting tonight’s RAW to have much more wrestling. Sadly, I think it will be viewed by a smaller audience then the opening week. But, with solid matches and shows I think that number is attainable again in the future.

One thing I’m particularly looking forward to is the potential debut of Pentagon Jr., who looks like he’ll be going by Penta in the WWE. His merch is on the WWE Shop, front page now as I checked, so I’d believe his debut is imminent and I expect it to happen tonight. With his style and look alone, he’s bound to be a draw for the WWE in my opinion and only good things will come from his run with the company. His debut and a few more matches on the card I think will beef the program up and get it rolling into can’t miss RAW episodes on Netflix.

Personally, I want to see this all do well. I have high hopes for this Netflix Era of RAW and it actually got me back into watching/writing. I’ve wrestled around the world to include Korea, Alaska, Texas and all throughout the southeastern USA over a span of 12+ years. This year I officially “retired” after several injuries, a neck fusion, and some muscles torn that I haven’t repaired yet. I’m looking forward to now being a spectator/critic and writing my thoughts from someone with experience for the world to hear/read.

I hope everyone has a great week and let’s hope Monday Night RAW tonight is a blast! If you’re not already, give me a follow on X, @RyanOshun

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The real question for 2025 is WHO will win the Royal Rumble matches?

On the men’s side, we reportedly have the following 3 matches scheduled for Wrestlemania 41:

– John Cena versus Cody Rhodes for the WWE Title
– Bill Goldberg versus Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship
– Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk

HOWEVER, there are rumors that Logan Paul will be pushed to potentially challenge Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship.

Regardless of whether Gunther wrestles Logan Paul or Bill Goldberg at Wrestlemania 41, this creates quite the dilemma because the winner of the Rumble match gets to choose the World Champion to challenge for a spot on Wrestlemania (used to say “main event” Wrestlemania, but that’s loosely used now).

If Goldberg, Cena, or Paul are getting spots on the Wrestlemania 41 card against World Champions, that means one of them HAS to win the 2025 Rumble match, right?

Well, I’d argue this for Bill Goldberg or John Cena… Do you really want a part-time veteran winning the Rumble match, particularly OLDER veterans who are even more part-time than your typical part-time wrestlers (like Logan Paul)?

The Rumble match should be about elevating the next pushed guy to the very top, hence why it made 100% sense why Cody won the 2023 Rumble to challenge Roman and why it made sense for him to win the 2024 Rumble (even though WWE almost fumbled that by shoehorning Rock into Wrestlemania following the Vince McMahon allegations). Cody was red hot and never was World Champion before. He was the chaser, and therefore made it gratifying when he won the Rumble match.

While John Cena has the Ric Flair record to chase, that’s all he has, long-term, with the company. Sure, if he won the title, he’d defend it and probably announce “I’ll retire when I lose the belt”, but you’ll still be pushing a 47 about to be 48 year-old to the World Title, especially a John Cena who clearly isn’t as good as he once was.

Sorry, but it would be STUPID to have Bill Goldberg win the Rumble match. HE DOESN’T DESERVE IT with the terrible efforts shown in his last few matches. If you’re going to wrestle 2-3 times per year, you have 362 other days to actually train for a match. Plent of time to work on cardio, take a few trips to the Performance Center to learn how to work, etc. But no, Goldberg has shown ZERO effort to work on his craft despite the millions WWE has paid him since 2016 while providing him favorable booking to protect his character.

Logan Paul winning the Rumble is very interesting… Look, I’d argue that he needs some more experience, but all things considered, he’s a good worker for the low wrestling mileage he actually has. On top of that, Paul has amazing intangibles, personality-wise, that you just cannot teach someone. Hence why he and his brother Jake have amassed an incredible financial empire from YouTube to Boxing to WWE. Both have talents to cause people to react one way or another, and that feeds perfectly into pro wrestling.

As a John Cena fan, I’d be personally happy that he won but I’d get the argument against why an older veteran should win it.

Bill Goldberg should wrestle Gunther at Elimination Chamber for his Retirement Match. Sorry, but Goldberg’s last few matches have SUCKED and he doesn’t deserve the Wrestlemania payday for that. Older WCW fans can elevate Elimination Chamber instead, as Wrestlemania doesn’t need the WCW nostalgia bump as an event that draws no matter what.

If WWE goes the older veteran route, they are selling to fans that there’s Roman, Cena, Rock, and Goldberg and then there’s everybody else.

If you go back into time, overpushing veterans without any plans to let the youth get a try towards the top will kill a wrestling promotion.

Territory times before the 1990s allowed wrestling veterans to simply move on to another territory once they wore out their welcome. After a great World Title run, there’s only so much you can do and then you just start fresh in another region. Hence why I think Roman Reigns could see an expiration date once he vanquishes the Rock because he has nobody else left to wrestle. What’s next, another World Title run? Well, how would that be any better than his magnificent 2020-2024 World Title run? Impossible to replicate that as he gets older.

Everyone talks about how “STACKED” the 1991-1992 WWE roster was, as WCW began to crumble through early 1991 while promotions like AWA and World Class were finished. All of the bigtime veteran wrestlers were now in the WWE and if you watch the 1992 Royal Rumble, it’s an incredible ALL TIME group of veterans. Wrestlemania 8 was great, too, because of that “stacked” veteran WWE roster… However, business declined throughout 1991 and 1992. That “stacked” veteran roster didn’t draw WWE money even close to prior years, as Hulk Hogan was losing steam and we saw all of those other veterans for years.

Fast forward to WCW through 1994 and up and until 1998. Hulk Hogan and Macho Man felt fresh in a new environment but then they became even more fresh when the New World Order storyline began. Suddenly, you had a HEEL Hulk Hogan and a Macho Man who was conflicted between fighting or joining the NWO (Macho’s 1997 feud with DDP was freakin’ amazing!). Scott Hall and Kevin Nash took their Razor/Diesel gimmicks as far as they could in WWE and freshened up their careers in WCW with the NWO, too.

By 1998, though, the veterans started to wear out their welcome but Eric Bischoff demanded to keep the NWO strong. The only fresh face that he truly pushed was Bill Goldberg who was a great attraction but even he wore out his welcome quickly from too much hype and winning the WCW Title early. Once the chase was over for Goldberg, he had nothing left to prove in WCW. Conversely, WWE thrived because they heavily pushed NEW names to the top such as Steve Austin, the Rock, Mick Foley, Triple H, Kane, and they freshened up the Undertaker.

WWE kept re-treading the Attitude Era through 2000 and 2001, along with recycling the NWO during 2002… But they launched a long-term plan starting during 2002. They began to unload their Ohio Valley Wrestling developmental system which included Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Randy Orton, Batista, Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas, and many others. While Austin, Rock, and Triple H held on firmly to their main event spots, they soon gave way to the new generation of wrestlers. By Wrestlemania 21 during 2005, you had John Cena and Batista becoming World Champions.

Cena held onto his top spot and drew for 10 freakin’ years, and the WWE tried to run with an inexperienced Roman Reigns as his replacement during 2014-2020. Vince McMahon was actually right that Roman was the right guy, but just poorly used him as a scripted babyface. Brock Lesnar coming back made things interesting, as he was a dominating main eventer with mass appeal and he really helped ease the pain of non-stop Roman pushes back then.

As a wrestling promotion, though, you need to formulate PLANS to build up the younger wrestlers. Hence why Royal Rumble is very important to highlight and up & coming star to the public, just as having credible midcard titles (IC & US) are important to build up the stars of tomorrow. WWE pissed away YEARS of having a built-in farm system by disregarding the United States and Intercontinental Titles on their brands. Guys like Macho Man, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Triple H, the Rock, and John Cena benefitted heavily by having great midcard title runs to PROVE that they could draw chasing and then holding a title.

I just don’t know if having John Cena or Bill Goldberg win it is the answer…

Maybe Logan Paul is, but damn, I really think that Drew McIntyre deserves consideration to win the Rumble and then go after Gunther. If Roman vs. Punk and Cena vs. Cody are happening and likely headlining each night in Las Vegas, then Drew vs. Gunther would KILL IT as an opening match or middle-of-the-night match that would cause any match to struggle following that. Sorry, but Drew proved something to me during 2024 and if CM Punk wasn’t so valuable as a Wrestlemania opponent for Roman Reigns, Drew should have won that feud.

I could see a good scenario where Drew wins the Rumble, defeats Gunther at Wrestlemania 41, and then gets revenge on CM Punk after Wrestlemania 41 once Punk likely loses to Roman Reigns. Then, you are capitalizing on Drew McIntyre’s great new character that was founded during 2024 once more.

But I’m just wondering what are the plans with someone like Bron Breakker or other recent NXT call-ups… Seems like WWE is VERY dependent on OVW and FCW developmental system guys, as their roster is still full of them… But they are each getting up there in age.

Now, for the Women’s side…

Rhea Ripley and Tiffany Stratton are the Champions… I’m going to be totally honest: I’m so excited for both of them.

Rhea is an absolute star and I’d argue one of the most talented females to ever grace the WWE ring. Awesome in-ring talent, tough as nails, strong as heck, full of charisma, full of personality, and obviously beautiful. Maybe too many tattoos for my liking, but I can look the other way and stop yelling that the clouds about that. Honestly for me, I think she should hold the title for maybe 1-2 years and just dominate the roster UNTIL maybe Wrestlemania 42 or 43 when a big match against Bianca Belair happens. HOWEVER, I’d be 100% OK with Bianca Belair getting the shot at Wrestlemania 41 against Rhea, losing because Jade Gargill turned on her, and then getting a rematch for Wrestlemania 42.

Tiffany Stratton needs a strong opponent for her to get a 100% clean win against, even if she’s the heel. I’d be 100% OK with Charlotte Flair or Becky Lynch wrestling her, but I’m very leery about letting either veteran just appear suddenly and win the 2025 Rumble match. Again, re-read what I said above: the Rumble match SHOULD help springboard an up & coming talent.

The dirt sheets are suggesting Rhea Ripley vs. Becky Lynch and Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair will be the Wrestlemania 41 matches.

Who should win the Rumble between those 2 veterans?

Now, I could be lenient with Goldberg, Cena, Charlotte, and Becky winning the Rumble as long as Gunther, Cody, Rhea, and Tiffany each win-out because they vanquished the veteran challengers. That will make the younger wrestlers look stronger. Thus, the “springboard” becomes Wrestlemania 41 for making the younger champions elevate their championship run. I could buy that.

Who else is ready for prime time in the Women’s division?

I really enjoyed Liv Morgan’s 2024 and felt it was a highlight of that year. Does she have more stories to tell after Rhea Ripley vanquished her and Dominik Mysterio?

And I don’t know if Alexa Bliss ever wants to return full-time or not. It’s been a year since we’ve seen her and I’m perfectly fine with the career she had and encourage her to enjoy being a Mom. I’d love to have late 2010s Bliss back, through, and would be happy to see a big comeback from her.

All of the other former Women’s Champions, we’ve already seen your best…

I just don’t know who is next on the WWE roster or on NXT who is as good as Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair, and Tiffany Stratton will grow into being nearly as good as them.

If you’re going to push part-time veterans to win the Rumble match, require them to put over the younger current champions. Don’t repeat 2014 where Randy Orton was tired as a World Champion with his existing character and was going to headline Wrestlemania 30 against a returning part-time Batista.

I realize that WWE is KILLING IT right now with their top stars, but they’ve got to start putting in plans to elevate stars, PARTICULARY on the men’s side who come from NXT. The wrestlers signed to join OVW and FCW are getting older and the amount of “dream matches” for them to accomplish is shortening.

The next few years will be a good test for Triple H to see if he’s learned any Talent Relations lessons from the 2010s when he struggled to groom future Main Eventers with his system. That, or we’ll have to see if his Creative Team management will overcome any weaknesses from talents coming from his developmental system.

If it were up to me, I’d have Drew McIntyre win the 2025 Rumble match and challenge Gunther, while I’d have Bianca Belair win the Women’s Rumble match and challenge Rhea Ripley.

BUT, I have faith and trust in what Triple H has been doing since June 2022 and will give him the chance to impress me.

The WILD CARD through all of this would be if The Rock or even Roman Reigns winning it… I just have this feeling that the WWE is up to something with the Rock and I’m looking forward to whatever surprise that might be.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Follow me on Blue Sky!

Mr. Tito Column Archive @ NoDQ

The post MR. TITO: Who Will Win the 2025 WWE Royal Rumble Matches for Both the Men and Women? appeared first on NoDQ.com: WWE and AEW Coverage.