A chat with WWE President Nick Khan about the happenings in and related to WWE.
Former WWE employee Janel Grant’s sexual trafficking lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE was covered on the newest episode of Pollock x Thurston as they invited Grant’s attorney, Ann Callis, onto the show.
WWE President Nick Khan guest appeared on The Town with Matthew Belloni and McMahon became a topic of conversation. Khan called the allegations against him ‘serious’ and ‘horrific’. At this point in the conversation, he was discussing WWE’s deal with Netflix and feels if the allegations had come out prior to it being finalized, it would not have helped the process of getting things done.
Khan said Netflix did not call on WWE to make McMahon resign from his roles. He added that it was McMahon’s call to step down. Khan said Vince is not involved in any way outside of being a stockholder.
I don’t know about ‘kill’ but it certainly wouldn’t have helped the deal (Khan said about Vince McMahon allegations). So those allegations are obviously horrific and serious and we take them and interpret them the same way I think every other reasonable person or organization would take them and you saw the quick resignation… No (Netflix did not tell us to make McMahon resign). Not in any way, shape or form… No (Vince is not involved in any way). Zero. As a stockholder as I’m a stockholder (is the only way he’s involved). Zero, zero, zero.
By the way, he chose to resign. So, there was no litigation. As you said, there was no threat in litigation.
Further speaking about the Netflix deal, Khan detailed the origins of it. He said Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro were in touch with Netflix and initially, Netflix was not interested in live broadcasts, setting up production or getting production trucks.
WWE had all of those necessities so it made the conversations smoother. The podcast host mentioned a report about the Netflix co-heads being split on whether to bring WWE on board or not. Khan said that never got back to him and if that was the case, it was kept in-house. Khan added that Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque was present for the initial pitch meeting.
Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro were in touch with Netflix. The initial feedback to them was, ‘Eh, we don’t really wanna get into live and we don’t wanna produce and get production trucks…’ WWE is a turnkey operation. We produce all of our own content, so I got a call from Ari and Mark saying, ‘Hey, let’s just go in and see them’ and as you know, once you’re in the room, you have a chance to get people to do things that they might not otherwise do. So it was a quick process. Bela Bajaria, Gabe Spitzer, a bunch of other folks there across it and ultimately approved by all of the heads at Netflix and here we are.
Never (did I hear that Netflix co-CEO’s were split on bringing WWE on board). I think they managed their internal disagreement at the time quite well. They kept it away from us and all we heard once we went in for that initial pitch meeting, so Ari, Mark, myself, Andrew Schleimer, who’s the C.F.O. of TKO and Triple H, once we went in for that initial pitch meeting, it was clear that there was a path here. We never heard anything negative.
Later in the show, Khan was asked when the Peacock rights come up, will everything be moved over to Netflix. He stated that the Peacock rights are up in March 2026.
He likes the timing of that because it’ll be right before WrestleMania 42. The host jokingly mentioned WrestleMania 42 being indoors and Khan laughed, repeated that sentiment and said it could be a little later in April and things are being sorted out.
Well specifically, they’re (Peacock rights) up March of ‘26 and for the wrestling fans out there, that means a month before WrestleMania 2026 which, you know, we like the timing of that… Indoors or maybe a little later in April. We’re going through that now (Khan said about WrestleMania 2026)… (Host mentions idea of it coming back to SoFi Stadium) C’mon, too much, too much outdoor. Outdoor, early April. So, we love the NBCU folks. They truly have been great. We were one of the first people, I think, who bought into Peacock.
Our incumbent is always our priority. They’re the incumbent on the Premium Live Event deal, the Peacock deal and we’ll see what they have to say when the time is right… That’s never a bad thing (to want to maximize our money).
WWE’s WrestleMania 40 event(s) is taking place April 6th and 7th from Lincoln Financial Field. There is going to be coverage of both nights here on POST Wrestling.
In the aforementioned Janel Grant lawsuit, Nick Khan was one of the names revealed as the previously unnamed corporate officers. To read more, click here.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Town with Matthew Belloni with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
