Vince McMahon Sells Additional $100 Million Worth of TKO Stock
As noted before, former TKO Executive Chairman Vince McMahon sold around 25% of his total shares in TKO Group stock earlier this month.
In a recent filing to the SEC, TKO revealed that McMahon recently sold an additional $100 million worth of his shares in the company.
On March 24, 2020, the Reporting Person entered into a variable prepaid forward sale agreement (the “Agreement”) with an unaffiliated bank (the “Bank”) relating to 3,484,006 shares of the Issuer’s Class A common stock and obligating the Reporting Person to deliver to the Bank up to 3,484,006 shares of the Issuer’s Class A common stock (or, at the Reporting Person’s election, under certain circumstances, an equivalent amount of cash) to settle the Agreement. On March 1, 2024, the Reporting Person and the Bank amended the Agreement to provide that the Agreement would be fully settled by the Reporting Person’s delivery of 3,484,006 shares of the Issuer’s Class A common stock to the Bank. The physical settlement contemplated by the Agreement were divided into 15 components, each of the first 14 of which were with respect to 232,267 shares of the Issuer’s Class A common stock and the last of which was with respect to 232,268 shares of the Issuer’s Class A common stock, and took place on each weekday between March 5, 2024 and March 25, 2024. Upon such physical settlement, the Reporting Person received, in the aggregate, approximately $100 million from the Bank.”
McMahon has sold around $1.2 billion worth of TKO stock since Endeavor’s purchase of WWE and still owns around 11.5 million in stock shares.
Becky Lynch Comments on Ronda Rousey Being Mishandled During Her Time in WWE
A recent episode of The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani show featured Becky Lynch as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Lynch’s thoughts about her belief that Ronda Rousey was mishandled during her time in WWE and part of the reason was due to she couldn’t wrestle.
“She was coming from a different industry. She was a star and she should have been handled differently in terms of, I think she had a great first outing that everybody thought, ‘Oh, she can wrestle.’ I mean this with respect, but she couldn’t wrestle. What do we do isn’t something that you can just have one good match and then, ‘Okay, yeah. I’m off to the races.’ It’s a craft and you have to learn your craft. You have to be diligent about learning your craft, but everybody treated Ronda like she already knew it because when she first came in, she was good in that first bout, but she was also working with Kurt Angle, she was working with Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, it was a well-rehearsed match because everybody wanted her to succeed. Then, it was like, ‘Okay, she can do this. Off to the races.’ That was mishandling her because she was a star in her own right and she had done so much for MMA and, in terms of that and booking, that wasn’t done well, but my experience coming from nobody thinking that I was going to be worth anything and making myself very valuable with the company and very valuable to wrestling in general, because I loved it and I sought out to do it. She came in and I think she found a place that she enjoyed, that she liked, but she never sought out to do it from a young age. I think that changes the experience that you have when you go into a place.”
Transcript h/t: Fightful.com
The Undertaker Comments on Bray Wyatt Would Have Been Logical Choice to End His WrestleMania Streak
A recent episode of the Six Feet Under with Mark Calaway podcast featured WWE Hall of Famer The Undertaker’s thoughts about his belief that Bray Wyatt would have been the logical choice to end his WrestleMania Streak had Brock Lesnar not done it.
“If it wasn’t Roman, I think the most logical person to break it would have been Bray Wyatt. I think probably of the three (Lesnar, Reigns, & Wyatt), it would have meant more to his career than even Roman’s. For Roman, it would have been very special but for Bray, who there were so many comparisons between the two characters and the darkness and the different things, for him to be able to have broke it would have been such a feather in his cap and something that could have extended the character of the Undertaker in a different capacity. Bray would have been in ring aspect of it, but I think that those characters would have somehow maybe merged together in some kind of higher power type deal. But I think of all the people that it would have helped the most, I think Bray would have been the guy.”
Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com
WWE News & Notes
WWE recently announced that Dominik Mysterio, LA Knight, and Bayley will be making an appearance at their WWE World at WrestleMania fan event on April 4-8 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was also announced that Carmela will also be making an appearance at their WWE World at WrestleMania fan event on April 6th. WWE also recently announced that WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan will also be making an appearance at their WWE World at WrestleMania fan event on April 7th.
This past Monday’s WWE RAW show featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson making a surprise appearance. During Cody Rhodes’ promo segment, Johnson came out to the ring and whispered something to Rhodes’ ear before leaving. Johnson recently provided an update on Instagram confirming lip readers that he had stated “Tonight, I make you bleed.”
PWTorch’s Wade Keller reported that his sources stated that despite Seth Rollins still holding legitimate real life issues with CM Punk, him and Punk have been getting along backstage when planning their segments. Keller reported that Punk has continued to get positive reviews from many people regarding how he is carrying himself amongst colleagues and management since his return to the company.
In response to a post on Twitter about Rob Van Dam donating his brain and spine to the Concussion Foundation for CTE research purposes, Dijak stated that he made the same pledge nine years ago to do the same for his brain when he passes away. Dijak stated “Agreed. I pledged my brain 9 years ago. Wrestlers click here if interested or hit up @ChrisNowinski1 or @ConcussionLF for more info.“
In a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, NXT head booker Shawn Michaels revealed that WWE will be holding a new set of tryouts during WrestleMania 40 weeks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Michaels stated “There’s a lot of real phenomenal potential talent coming through NXT and there’s gonna be good representation into the future. Certainly from a diversity standpoint but easily from the women and the men, because again, they keep coming. We got another tryout at WrestleMania and so, I gotta tell ya, the competition makes it pretty amazing down there in Orlando for us to put together a fantastic show that I think represents everybody equally and fairly as we go down the line.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)
In a recent interview with Uproxx, Paul Heyman stated that Roman Reigns had considered himself retired from wrestling after he stepped away from WWE shortly before WrestleMania 36 due to issues involving the COVID pandemic. Heyman stated “He considered himself retired. He wasn’t coming back. I was executive director of Monday Night Raw, and Roman was assigned to SmackDown. But every week I heard all the SmackDown writers and producers and personnel saying, ‘God, I just wish Roman would come back.’ And I would ask, has anybody talked to him? Yeah, he says he’s retired. He’s not coming back. No way. Thanks a lot. Done. Finished. Goodbye. So the fact that he came back for this run, for what we have accomplished, is nothing short of a miracle because as far as he was concerned, he was out.“
In a recent interview with the Sportskeeda’s WrestleBinge podcast, WWE Hall of Fame inductee Mike Rotunda gave his thoughts about WWE not inducting his late son Bray Wyatt as part of this year’s Hall of Fame class. Rotunda stated “I was surprised because my son, you know, with Windham passing, I thought they were going to immediately put Windham into the Hall of Fame, which he will be at some point. I think WWE reassessed his stuff and thought it was too soon to go there and then the reactions and stress on us. We got a call from WWE. They said, ‘Hunter wants to do a Zoom call.’ We were thinking they were going to tell us what’s going to happen at WrestleMania and Hunter said, ‘You guys are going to get inducted, you and Barry. You were part of the first-ever WrestleMania’. It was very flattering, obviously, and actually less stressful on us because of all the stuff we’ve had to go through with Windham passing, just the mental capacity of it. So, obviously, it’s a great honor because you’re getting rewarded for what you spent 40 years doing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
In a recent interview with the Getting Over Wrestling Podcast, Becky Lynch gave her thoughts about the differences in WWE’s Creative between Triple H and Vince McMahon’s control over it. Lynch stated “Consistency. I think that is the name of the game. Paul [Paul Levesque aka Triple H] tends to have a long-term vision of something, and an idea of something, and executes. Whereas, before, it was notorious that the show was being re-written as it was going on and we were live on TV and people didn’t know what was happening in the third hour, and there would be stories that would star, and Vince would change his mind. With Paul, he sees things through. For better or worse, that gives a different viewing experience. Whether you like the story or not, you’re going to see it through. I think it’s good because you might not like the story on week two, but you don’t know where it’s going on week four. If we listen to people saying, ‘We don’t like the story on week two,’ then you might never get the magic you were going to get on week four. It’s important to listen to the audience to a certain degree, but wrestling is intended to elicit emotional responses. For example, when I beat Bianca Belair in 26 seconds, people were outraged. Good. That was the intention. You were meant to be outraged. You were meant to want to see her succeed. Then, I started talking about her hair, people were outraged that I might touch her hair and they were outraged, ‘How dare they?’ You don’t know where we are going. Also, I’m a heel, you were meant to be outraged by the things I do. Please understand that’s a heel. A heel isn’t somebody that gives cool zingers. It’s somebody that is unlikable, that you want to see the babyface overthrow. It doesn’t always work out. Anyway, after going on a tangent, the thing is, if you don’t see things through, you don’t get the magic at the end of the story. It is important to listen to the audience, but it’s also, sometimes, for the greater good, it’s important to not listen [laughs].” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)
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