TKO head thinks WWE needs to be ‘moving past’ Vince McMahon-created PLEs
TKO president and chief operating officer Mark Shapiro has never been shy about pointing out perceived Vince McMahon’s business flaws from his ticketing strategy to his lack of in-arena and in-ring advertising.
In a recent interview with sports media reporter Andrew Marchand, he also made it clear he wants to seemingly wants to move past some of McMahon’s past pay-per-view creations.
Shapiro was talking about the work ethics of WWE president Nick Khan and creative head Paul “Triple H” Levesque and how they are always open to new ideas and ready to “take on a new shot, a new risk, a new opportunity” which includes new events like Wrestlepalooza.
“Right now, a lot of our PLEs were really created by Vince McMahon. We need to get in the business of taking that torch and moving past that. Nick (Khan) and Triple H created Wrestlepalooza, which is the launch event for our new ESPN deal which did incredibly well and may turn into a super franchise. Not to mention from a merch standpoint, I don’t need to tell you, securing the IP rights and then selling merch out at Wrestlepalooza. Let’s just say it was a real winner,” he said.
Shapiro didn’t go into why he feels that way or if that is a corporate directive to Khan. He also made news for the interview as he called Fox “a little lazy” in how they approached selling UFC when they held TV rights.
In the TKO era, WWE has yet to abandon long-standing event names like WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, Money in the Bank or Elimination Chamber — all of which were created in the McMahon era. Even the names of their trademark TV shows haven’t changed.
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.