ESPN will have ‘church and state’ relationship with news coverage of WWE & other wrestling
For those concerned on how ESPN will cover WWE and/or pro wrestling in the future, two executives want to put those concerns to rest.
During a media call Wednesday to promote Saturday’s launch on the ESPN networks with Wrestlepalooza and specifically their new streaming platform, ESPN+ senior vice president JT Lasker and vice president of programming & acquisitions Matt Kenny were asked if those who report on wrestling will have “full independence” in how they do so.
Lasker answered, “I think the answer to that is an emphatic yes.” Kenny then followed up with “an unequivocal yes. That’s a separation of church and state. We have some PR folks on the call that can underscore that, but yes.”
On their website, WWE has a home right next to UFC on the main navigation that leads to a well-populated landing page. Under ‘More Sports,’ there is a ‘Professional Wrestling‘ section which has nearly all WWE content on there as well.
There is an AEW section within the wrestling area that leads to a very lightly populated page with an events schedule and listing of AEW World Champions. The last feature was from over 200 days ago.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.