When it comes to the purchasing side of the pro wrestling world, there are no bigger players in the business than Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. Which makes the following speculation quite surprising considering what the WWE has managed to accomplish over the course of the last 20 years including buying up their biggest competition in the WCW, scooping up indie darling ECW and buying a shitload of tape libraries for the WWE Network.
Anyways, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Fox may be looking to outright purchase the WWE in an effort to replace the UFC if the mix martial arts company chooses to jump ship to another network. The speculation further stems from Fox having a surplus on money in the wake of the 21st Century Fox sell off to Disney and the media company’s strategy to avoid negotiating new TV deals with organizations such as what they’re currently going though with the UFC.
Meltzer continues in his report that Triple-H has already met with Fox officials about a possible sale that would see WWE programing fill the content slots once held by the UFC. This would also include Monday Night RAW airing on Fox while moving back to a two-hour block and Smackdown Live landing on FS1. Additionally, there could be an avenue for more WWE programing to land on various Fox Sports networks given the further need to fill time occupied by other UFC programing like UFC’s Best Knockouts.
With that in mind, there’s no telling what would happen to the WWE Network, which has seemingly been a financial liability for McMahon’s organization ever since its inception back in 2014.
It’s important to note however that beyond the initial meeting between Triple-H and the Fox executives, any other information is purely speculative. It seems more so that Meltzer was connecting dots in his original report and any potential deal between the WWE and Fox is the the very early stages. Aside from that, WWE’s current TV deal with NBC runs out in 2019.
