There’s been plenty of rumors swirling about WWE and the state of their business. They’ve seemed to have dedicated themselves to cutting costs for the rest of 2017 as their revenue is severely behind last year’s pace. Their most recent enterprise, the WWE Network, while successful, isn’t growing like they may have anticipated.
And then there’s the current Brock Lesnar saga. At first glance, it may seem totally unrelated, but on a deeper cut, Brock’s “Will He or Won’t He” narrative may be more connected to WWE’s bottom line than we may think.
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WWE and UFC’s unspoken agreements are all too apparent in the summer of 2017. Dating back to the last year, Vince McMahon and UFC figurehead, Dana White, may have struck some sort of deal in a back alley. All signs point to them creating a symbiotic relationship which allows cross promotional usage of stars like Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey.
Toss in the militant Jon Jones as well as the Becky Lynch/Chris Cyborg “feud” and we officially have a trend.
Last summer UFC was purchased by conglomerate WME-IMG for $4 billion. As the bonds between WWE and UFC strengthen, is it possible that WME-IMG makes a lucrative offer for WWE one day?
On a recent episode of his podcast, Bischoff on Wrestling, Former WCW boss Eric Bischoff and his co-host Neil Hausman cover this exact issue:
Hausman: “With the UFC having The Rock at UFC 214 and Jon Jones calling out Brock Lesnar could you see Vince selling the company (WWE) to WME-IMG? They bought UFC, could they make a similar play to Vince?”
Bischoff: “I just can’t imagine, I don’t know, I’ve never had a conversation with any of the McMahons about anything like this. From what I know of them, The McMahons, I just can’t imagine that they would sell the company out. I can’t. It’s the McMahon legacy and it’s too hard for me to imagine.”
For WWE to leave the McMahon family, something earth shattering would have to happen. Would a $15 billion offer from WME-IMG be biblical enough? From the outside looking in, WWE will stay under the McMahons’ control until the end of time. But maybe that’s coming from a fan’s perspective instead of a businessman’s.
However, with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon being the clear heir to the McMahon kingdom, WWE “selling out” will have to wait for a least another generation.
So while this is the actually juiciest storyline in WWE right now, there’s little more we can do than speculate. It’s possible that the McMahons relinquish their stakes in WWE one day, but then again it’s technically possible that Hulk Hogan will return to pin Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 39.
