Evil TKO's Coming Out Party: WrestleMania 42
Mark Shapiro is "freshening up" the WWE and fans hate it just like they hate his UFC
TKO’s chickens came home to roost at this weekend’s WrestleMania 42.
At the hotel, wrestlers were dealing with a glaring lack of security, exposing Bayley, AJ Lee, and CM Punk to overzealous/creepy fans.
Backstage, the catering situation was a food desert. Inspiring Kevin Nash to go public:
"Be there at three o'clock, leave at midnight, absolutely not a stitch of food for the talent available. No protein. Some bags of chips, a couple of bananas and a tangerine. I asked the head of talent relations, I won't say his name, I asked him, 'Is there food?' He didn't come in and say hi to me until Stephanie was done. In other words, we probably will never have to use him again because he will never do anything again."
WWE wrestlers are used to suffering all kinds of indignities, injuries, and low pay, but they expect to be safe and to be fed.
And on air? There were audible chants of “Fuck TKO” from the crowd that were impossible to ignore on the ESPN broadcast.
Nick Khan can laugh all the way to the bank as fans live-action role-play protesting while paying TKO thousands of dollars for the privilege of doing so, but TKO has moved on to “the beatings will continue until morale improves” phase.
And next year, WrestleMania 43 will be held in Saudi Arabia. Not sure what kind of odds TKO’s official prediction market partner is giving that the event will actually happen, but something tells me there won’t be a huge influx of tourists headed to Riyadh to see for themselves.
But that’s down the road apiece, for now, TKO’s WWE stands exposed as a company that has optimized its business model to extract maximum capital while viewing its core audience, its broadcast partners, and the press with undisguised contempt.
See the clip from The Dan LeBatard Show above that makes this point brutally.
But let’s look at how we got here.
What happened to WrestleMania in NOLA?
Originally, WrestleMania 42 was destined to take place in New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA). That’s what the WWE announced in February 2025.
But just three months later, WWE announced the event would NOT be held in NOLA. As a consolation prize (and since they no doubt paid a major site fee), the Crescent City got to host UFC 318 last year and will host WWE’s Money in the Bank in September.
A few weeks later, it was officially announced that WrestleMania 42 would return to Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, the site of 2025’s WrestleMania 41.
As Zach Arnold warned MMA Draw Podcast listeners at the time:
We are witnessing corporate politics at its very worst. A bifurcation of major operations with WWE & UFC, likely being merged into Las Vegas with production in Stamford.
Very few fight fans cared about this development, but now customers are taking notice of the politics of Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro. It’s starting to impact match quality, pricing of tickets, and overall television production. You’ve never had the privilege of paying more to get less. That sums up America in 2025.
Thanks to Brandon Thurston and Jason Ounpraseuth, we know that the site fees and tax credits Las Vegas paid to get WrestleMania 42 were outrageous, and it’s easy to see why the city would be willing to pony up, given its much-publicized economic woes in the Trump 2.0 era, with many international visitors staying far away from a USA that sics ICE goons on tourists and threatens to invade Canada.
WWE received approval for as much as $4,314,821 in tax credits for WrestleMania 42 and related events around Las Vegas, according to records made public by the Nevada agency that approves such applications.
The tax credit amount is based on how much WWE expects to spend to produce the events: more than $35 million.
The credit is slightly more than the $4,240,456 WWE was approved for last year for WrestleMania-related events, as part of the same program in Nevada intended to draw film and entertainment business to the state.
…
GOED Director of Communications Carli Smith confirmed to POST Wrestling that WWE’s application was approved. She noted to us that an audit is involved, and the qualifying amount is the maximum WWE will receive.“Their actual tax credit amount will be determined by an independent audit based on their actual spend,” Smith said, “but it cannot be more than the $4,314,821.”
That’s the kind of money that can convince Mark Shapiro to screw over New Orleans for sure.
Slow ticket sales heading into the event
Shit got real when WrestleMania 42 tickets hit the market…and just sat there, largely going unsold.
By April, Dave Meltzer was reporting that ticket sales were down 18% year-over-year.
Cultaholic reported on the moves the WWE made to move tickets and fill the stadium heading into the event:
As of Friday, April 10, ticket sales for WrestleMania 42 were down 19 per cent at the same point for 2025’s WrestleMania 41, which also took place at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. WrestleMania 42 ticket sales were largely static between December and mid-March, but tickets have begun to move since WWE reduced prices and announced a number of promotional discounts, including 31.6 per cent off on March 16, and the promo codes REBELS and CAESARS which currently provide prospective attendees with 25 per cent off.
Since mid-February, the cheapest price of two-day tickets for WrestleMania 42 has halved from $738 to $307.85 with the use of a 25 per cent off discount code. The cheapest one-day ticket, meanwhile, has fallen from $266 in mid-February to $153.95 today with a promo code.
WWE WrestleMania 41 hit record ticket prices in 2025. The average cost of two tickets to last year’s show at the Allegiant Stadium was $4,692.98.
But 12 months on, the average price for two tickets has fallen to $1,200. This comes amid a build to WWE WrestleMania 42 that forced the company to offer multiple discount deals. From a 25% winter sale and a cut in Ticketmaster fees to Pat McAfee’s last-minute 25% reduction, WWE tried it all to get people into the stadium.
WWE’s move to employ John Cena as host of WWE WrestleMania 42 was also seen as a knee-jerk reaction to low sales.
Bookings and Airbnb have also slashed their prices 38.47%. The average hotel stay has dropped from a 2025 high of $849.20 to $522.56. Accommodation costs were calculated using a combined dataset of 2,071 hotel and Airbnb listings, capturing accommodation prices during the WrestleMania weekend period
Oof.
The ugliest part of the story is that a modern corporation like TKO must promise and deliver continuous year-over-year growth in profits to keep investors happy and its stock price high.
Mark Shapiro is promising 50% growth in Financial Incentive Packages (the new way to say “Government Contracts” or “Site Fees”) over the next five years, which means the host cities for WWE and UFC events can expect the squeeze to get even harder.
And since both promotions are mature monopolies with limited growth prospects, the only way to increase profits is to buy more businesses (NASCAR?) or increase margins.
They’ve already cut WWE performer pay to a percentage of revenue that will sound very familiar to UFC fighters, per Thurston & Ounpraseuth:
2026 is the year fans can’t avoid seeing what Mark Shapiro has done to cut costs and increase margins.
Everything is the same in both promotions, and everything is getting enshittified at a relentless rate.
It’s like he bought five different chains selling ice cream and replaced all the artisanal flavors with the cheapest, shittiest vanilla he could find, and only cosmetic differences in the toppings.
Hate to break it to you buddy, but the fans noticed.
ESPN problems
The next set of problems that hit WrestleMania 42 had to do with WWE’s new exclusive streaming partner for PLEs, ESPN.
First off, the 10 million Americans who access cable TV via Alphabet’s YouTubeTV service were SOL, per Awful Announcing:
YouTube TV subscribers reportedly will not gain authentication access in time for WrestleMania 42 this weekend, which will air exclusively on the Unlimited tier of ESPN’s new app, according to a report by Austin Karp in Sports Business Journal on Monday. Subscribers to the popular Google-owned pay TV alternative have waited for access to ESPN Unlimited since November 2025, when YouTube TV and Disney reached a new long-term carriage agreement after a weeks-long blackout.
Awful Announcing also chronicled the backlash triggered when ESPN stuffed WrestleMania coverage onto SportsCenter and other mainstream sports shows:
The network has done more segments on WWE this week than it has on MLB and the NHL combined.
…
ESPN’s three flagship studio programs — Get Up, First Take, and The Pat McAfee Show — spent more time discussing WWE this week than MLB and the NHL combined. In total, these shows dedicated 14 segments to WWE this week, while dedicating only 7 to MLB and 5 to the NHL.WWE was the third-most-discussed “sport” in ESPN’s daily programming this week, behind the NBA (44 segments) and the NFL (25 segments).
And generally speaking, the WWE segments went much longer than those dedicated to MLB or the NHL. Across the three shows, WWE segments accounted for 104 minutes of programming, while MLB and NHL segments each accounted for 56 minutes.
And then there was what happened to ESPN’s actual long-time WWE reporter Andreas Hale:
Don’t hold your breath waiting for Ariel Helwani to organize the kind of backlash against TKO’s media bullying that got his credentials restored when Dana White blackballed him.
BroBible chronicled the work of Hale’s that’s believed to have earned TKO’s ire:
Following WWE’s debut event on ESPN Unlimited, entitled WrestlePalooza, Hale gave the show a “C” grade and noted that the women’s match between Stephanie Vaquer and Iyo Sky “saved this show from being truly average.”
“Everything else was either underwhelming (the short Rhodes-McIntyre match) or a setup for a future match (Lesnar dominating Cena). For a card that promised to have epic moments, it fell a little short of expectations,” he continued.
Additionally, Hale recently covered former WWE employee Janel Grant’s detailed allegations against both the company and former owner Vince McMahon, who many believe could soon return to the fold in some capacity.
Grant accused McMahon of sexual battery and trafficking during her time with the pro wrestling promotion from 2019 to 2022.
Think about the sheer, unadulterated arrogance of that move. ESPN is currently paying TKO $1.6 billion over five years to be the exclusive domestic streaming home of WWE’s premium live events. Yet, TKO feels so entirely insulated by its market dominance that it will openly humiliate its broadcast partner’s lead combat sports reporter. The message Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro are sending to Bristol is chillingly clear: ‘We own the real estate. You just rent the broadcast rights. Grade our events on a curve, ignore our federal lawsuits, or stay home.’
The even crazier part of the story is that companies like Paramount and ESPN can pay out hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and they don’t even get to claim their ‘the customer is always right’ privileges.
Why is that you ask?
That’s because Ari Emanuel’s TKO is so politically and culturally hooked up (ie most of the talking heads on every single network and a huge % of top “independent” podcasters are represented by WME) that TKO has more power in the relationship than their media partners.
Why is ESPN even bothering to pretend to do journalism when they won’t stand up for their employee? Either fire the guy and let him have his dignity or stand up for him. Who else has this dynamic in sports? Not MLB, or NHL, or even the NBA. Maybe the NFL, but no one else.
And then there was the event itself
Which brings us to the actual in-ring product. If you stripped away the marketing veneer, Saturday’s card was a bloated, overbooked monument to algorithmic engagement over basic storytelling. It was less a wrestling event and more a parade of forced viral clips designed to be chopped up for TikTok. Why focus on match psychology or long-term narrative payoffs when you can just shoehorn IShowSpeed and Pat McAfee into the main event picture?
The ticket prices, which have seen a staggering 400% hike from just a few years ago, dictate that the live crowd isn’t the working-class base that built this industry. It is a sterile, corporate mix of comped executives, influencers looking to create content with Alligiant Stadium as a backdrop, and high-rollers who sit on their hands while rushed title changes—like Liv Morgan’s blink-and-you-miss-it victory—are cycled through simply to make room for another celebrity interference spot.
The energy inside the building was flat because the audience implicitly understands the transactional nature of the modern WWE. They are no longer participants in a shared, emotional narrative. They are background extras in a TKO commercial.
This tweet spoke for a lot of fans:
And while the second night featured much better matches (averaging an A overall from CBS Sports’ Brent Brookhouse) the overall effect was enough to put Ariel Helwani on his high horse for a spirited rant:
TKO, as an entity, has a major task on its hands right now: it has to win the hardcore fans back.
They may care about the casuals, the top line, the mainstream fans, celebrities, and influencers. They may not care about the hardcores now—but they will start to worry about them when the casuals become hardcores, which is what they want.
The letters TKO are becoming somewhat stained in the eyes of wrestling, MMA, and boxing fans. We should never be talking about TKO as fans—that’s the parent company.
They’re ruining the sanctity of what we love so much. The mat now has ads everywhere. The table has ads everywhere. The apron has ads everywhere. There are no more backstage vignettes, no more interviews, and entrances are being lost—it doesn’t feel the same anymore.
One fact that Ariel doesn’t seem to have registered is that in Mark Shapiro’s TKO, the poors can never be hardcores. Those seats are reserved for cryptobros, political hacks, and influencers looking for a content backdrop.
It wasn’t just the Dean of Combat Sports Journalism with TKO’s name in his mouth either. Fans were audibly chanting “FUCK TKO!” during the ESPN broadcast.
Let’s let Mark Shapiro have the last word
Our own Blake “Axe” Avignon found audio (on Reddit) of Mark Shapiro recently speaking to a college class at the University of Alabama, and it’s very revealing:
Student: I have a question about TKO. So I know TKO bought WWE, I think it was like a year or two ago. And since then, they went to ESPN, they went to Netflix. And I’ll be honest, I’ve seen a lot online of WWE fans almost complaining about TKO. And how there’s a lot of celebrity involvement. And then there’s, like, Jelly Roll and, like, I Show Speed and, like, Pat McAfee and, like, Logan Paul. Yeah, Logan Paul’s been there for a while. I’m actually just genuinely curious because people are saying, like, TKO is, ever since they bought WWE, like, the product has, like, almost become more focused on, you know, moments. and like, I don’t want to say money grabs, but there is more focus on making as much money as possible. I guess I’m curious, how much involvement does TKO really have on creative control decisions like that?
Mark Shapiro: First of all (TKO) has complete control. So we responsible. We good on that?
You didn’t hear about this stuff in the old days with WWE when Vince McMahon owned it because it was a private company for so many years. So they didn't put out their financial results, if you will.
Nobody knew. They knew it was successful and the brand was strong and it had a legion of fans, but they didn't really know how the business worked and what it was making, etc.
Then Vince went public with WWE and then TKO was formed with UFC and WWE coming together. So those two companies came together and launched TKO, which is a public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TKO. And now everything's kind of out there.
But what I would tell you is WWE has grown in every way. It's grown financial results, but more importantly, it's grown in audience, it's grown in social, it's grown in stars, it's grown in clicks, views, short form video. I mean, it's really exploded.
And the reason for that is it was really just on Peacock and USA (Network). And now, since TKO, we did a new deal, which put RAW, our big Monday night show, on Netflix. It tripled our audience. (Variety reported RAW on USA Network drew 1.65 million viewers in 2024, while RAW is currently drawing a little below 3 million global viewers on Netflix.)
And then we put SmackDown which is our Friday night show we put that on USA and we put our developmental lead which is called NXT on CW And CW is linear but CW has 100 million homes. So it really grew NXT.
And then what we call the premium live events (PLEs), which is our big event. Every month we have one big event. Those are the weekly shows that I just mentioned. And then we have one big event every month. Royal Rumble, Summer Slam.
And those used to air on Peacock, and now ESPN bought that deal. So we're now on the ESPN app.
And this weekend, of course, is WrestleMania 42, which is taking place in Las Vegas. So as far as the stars part of it, like, I don't think that's true. But if it was, good. I mean, The Rock is the biggest star on the planet, right? We, I mean, he actually is.
And we represent him at WME. He was a wrestler for WWE for years before he ever became a Jumanji star, right? I mean, that's just, that's who he is.
So having Hollywood tie-ins and celebs and stars and Logan Paul and Pat McAfee and Mark Wahlberg shows up and does his thing. Or Tyrese Halliburton last year got in a fight in the ring with Jalen Brunson and the Knicks.
Like, that's not new. It's just on a larger stage.
And we’re spending a lot more money to market the brand and market the content And when you do that you going to win some folks over but you also going to chase some folks away.
You know they don’t like this or they don’t like that or this is too expensive or I don’t want to have to ‘Oh my God I've got to watch the WWE, I've got to buy Netflix which costs this much, I've got to watch SmackDown on USA, I've got to do that, I've got to have CW, so I have to have cable or linear television, and now I have to pay for ESPN.’
And you can make some enemies really quickly. I was just reading something today, the Fed was showing you, that if you want to watch the Yankees games this year, the New York Yankee season. The full season through the playoffs, you'll have to watch them across 10 platforms at the cost of $1,000 when you add up everything you have to buy to see them. That's just the way of the world today.
And you will chase away some fans, so that's not good, but hopefully you're getting some quality storytelling and also programming around just the Yankees. If you go to Paramount Plus right now to see UFC, you may buy Paramount Plus just to get to UFC but you also might already have it because you're a fan of Landman or something or Taylor Sheridan shows so we really want to surround ourselves with a good neighborhood of content and ESPN is a perfect example because they have a every sport one plus one equals five when you get adjacent to that those kinds of properties.
Mark really makes it sound magical, doesn’t he?
But it’s glaring how much Mark Shapiro was hyping up Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and yet Johnson is the same TKO Board Member who teased an appearance at WrestleMania 41 last year after the John Cena heel turn with Travis Scott at Elimination Chamber 2025 in Toronto and then no-showed.
This year the Rock was again nowhere to be found for WrestleMania 42. He didn’t tweet about it or promote it WHILE HE WAS IN LAS VEGAS the week of WM 42. He was in Vegas at CinemaCon promoting Jumanji.
But all of that aside, look at Shapiro’s fountain of babble. Compare his sales pitch to these college students versus the way he talks on TKO conference calls. The difference is night and day.
Mark Shapiro’s native tongue is rapacious capitalism, and he doesn’t know how to talk to the customer on the other end of the trade.
This is the Endeavor playbook operating at maximum, ruthless efficiency. We have seen it executed in the UFC for a decade. You consolidate the market, you squeeze the talent, you neuter the press corps by revoking credentials of anyone who asks hard questions, and you price out the traditional fan in favor of sovereign wealth funds and corporate sponsors.
Even worse, TKO is doubling-down at a time when they are hiring high-priced lawyers from firm Quinn Emanuel in 4-figure-per-hour billable hours to defend themselves in antitrust litigation in Las Vegas in front of Judge Boulware and defending themselves against activist investor Carl Icahn’s lawsuit in Delaware and a brutal lawsuit in Los Angeles Federal Court by Altshares ETF that detailed just how the Endeavor take-private transaction supposedly went down.
TKO can silence Andreas Hale; they can force fans to pay double when their tech infrastructure fails, and they can point to their stock price as the ultimate validation of their methods.
But maybe, just maybe, the reaction to WrestleMania 42 might be a turning point.
UFC White House in June will be another big TKO test case, especially with POTUS Trump’s popularity plummeting by the day (especially with the key young male UFC demo) and every sign that the inflation triggered by his war of choice on Iran will be raging by early summer.
But the real crunch time will come at WrestleMania 43 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. TKO sold out the WWE (and Zuffa Boxing) to Turki Alalshikh and his royal masters.
Fans hated it.
But that was before the warnings we have been making for years about doing business in a volatile, war-torn region came home to roost with the Iran War.
Will TKO even be able to put on the event at all?
Will Vince McMahon be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in front of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman?
How deep will the Saudi cuts to their sports investment end up being? They’ve already cut off Tom Brady’s touch football and LIV Golf. Talk about an empire built on sand.
TKO sold out everything. They even sold a Wrestlemania 42 commentator seat to Crypto guy and New York trash magnate Adam Weitsman via OnLocation.
Now that the WWE fan base is waking up to the reality that under the TKO banner, the house always wins, and the fans are just the marks at the table, will the company be forced to adjust?
Don’t count on it.
Nate Wilcox is the Editor-in-Chief of The MMA Draw. He founded Bloody Elbow in 2007 and sold it in 2024.