WWE: Update on Vince McMahon Selling Remainder of His TKO Group Stock & Nick Khan Also Selling His Stock, More on NXT April 23, 2024 Viewership, More News

Apr 27, 2024

Update on Vince McMahon Selling Remainder of His TKO Group Stock & WWE President Nick Khan Also Selling His Stock

As noted before, former TKO Group Executive Chairman Vince McMahon recently registered all of his remaining stock shares, over 8 million in total, up for public sale.

In a recent filing to the SEC, TKO provided an update regarding McMahon putting all of his stock in the company up for sale. This filing was not a new filing and instead a final version of their initial filing.

This final SEC filing version stated that “8,258,887 shares of our Class A common stock” will be up for sale with the breakdown being 8,021,405 shares from McMahon, 234,424 shares from WWE president Nick Khan, and 3508 shares by TKO Board member Steven Koonin.

This quickly lead to online speculation of Khan potentially leaving WWE soon since this was the first time he put up his TKO stock for sale and for all of his current shares in the company. This speculation originated from a report from Sportico that misread the filing thinking it was a brand new filing and not just an update of a previous filing.

Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that this updated filing does not mean that McMahon nor Khan have sold any of their shares yet and this process “allows the public to buy them and therefore might allow McMahon, Khan, and Koonin to get a better deal and to complete any transactions with less administrative friction.”

More on NXT Viewership for April 23, 2024

The April 23rd episode of WWE NXT saw NXT gain a large increase in overall viewership and a small increase in key demographic ratings. This week’s show was notable for being the NXT Spring Breakin 2024 Week 1 special.

NXT drew 661,000 viewers and a 0.20 key demographic rating on USA Network. NXT’s key demographic ranking was 8th place.

Detailed key demographic viewership breakdowns were not available in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Dave Meltzer reported that the main reasons for NXT’s increases this week was due to the large gains from their overall key demographic viewership group, which its percentage was not given. Another reason reportedly was due to the growth of the show’s viewership as the show went along starting at 572,000 viewers for its first quarter and grew to 741,000 viewers by its overrun.

In terms of notable head-to-head competition, the 2024 NBA Playoffs Game 2 of Phoenix Suns vs. Minnesota Timberwolves drew 2,614,000 viewers on TNT, the 2024 NBA Playoffs Game 2 of Indiana Pacers vs. Milwaukee Bucks drew 555,000 viewers on NBA TV, the 2024 NHL Playoffs Game 2 of Washington Capitals vs. New York Rangers drew 1,054,000 viewers on ESPN, the 2024 NHL Playoffs Game 2 of Colorado Avalanche vs. Winnipeg Jets drew 700,000 viewers on ESPN, the 2024 NHL Playoffs Game 2 of Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Florida Panthers drew 515,000 viewers on ESPN2, Vanderpump Rules drew 918,000 viewers on BRAVO, The Valley drew 626,000 viewers on BRAVO, Curse of Oak Island drew 2,092,000 viewers on History Channel, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 357,000 viewers on MTV, and Little People Big World drew 958,000 viewers on TLC.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 262,000 viewers.

In terms of peak viewership, NXT’s peak overall viewership was at 721,000 viewers for the quarter hour featuring the NXT Women’s Underground match contract signing segment with Natayla, Karmen Petrovic, Lola Vice & Shayna Baszler, The Final Testament video package segment, and the Nathan Frazer, Axiom, The O.C., and Malik Blade & Edris Enofe backstage segment. NXT’s peak key demographic viewership was at 288,000 viewers for the same quarter hour. NXT’s overrun reportedly was 741,000 overall viewers and 303,000 key demo viewers for the ending of the NXT Championship match of Trick Williams vs. Ilja Dragunov (c) & post-match stuff.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was up 2.2% in overall viewership and 11.1% in key demographic viewership.

WWE News & Notes

As noted before, WWE currently has plans for Bo Dallas’ and the Uncle Howdy character potential return to the company. Friday’s 2024 WWE Draft themed SmackDown show in Cincinnati, Ohio featured a new teaser video for the upcoming return of Dallas and the Uncle Howdy character. During the match between Bron Breakker and Cedric Alexander, the screen briefly glitched and flashed several images including a message of “Remember who you are.” Later in the show, the screen briefly glitched again and flashed a new QR code that when scanned, brings the person to a website and prompts answers to several questions. Depending on the answers given, an image will be shown with or without the faces scratched off. One of the questions leads to a video featuring some of the same images from earlier in the show.

WE held one dark match for next week’s WWE Speed show following Friday’s SmackDown show in Cincinnati. This was the Finals of the WWE Speed Championship Tournament match of Ricochet vs. Johnny Gargano, which was won by Ricochet.

As noted before, Dominik Mysterio suffered an elbow injury during his match against Andrade at the April 15th WWE RAW show. The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported that his sources confirmed Mysterio’s comments about him not needing to undergo surgery to repair his elbow. Meltzer reported that Mysterio will be rehabbing his injury through physical therapy instead.

The JohnWallStreet reported that WWE generated a live gate of around $38.5 million for their two-night WrestleMania 40 event earlier this month at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was reported that this was up 78% compared to last year’s WrestleMania 39 live gate and up 147% compared to WrestleMania 38 in 2022. Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that this would mean that WrestleMania 39’s live gate was around $21.6 million and WrestleMania 38’s live gate was around $15.6 million.

WWE filed a trademark for “MFT” on April 19th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. This is the nickname that Solo Sikoa gave to Tama Tonga in The Bloodline.

The Viking Raiders’ Erik and Valhalla recently announced on Instagram that they are currently expecting the birth of their second child this November.

As noted before, WWE released seven talents over the past week with the bulk being on April 19th followed by Von Wagner this past Monday and Cameron Grimes this past Tuesday. Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the final decision for all of the talent cuts were made by WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque. Meltzer reported that despite Von Wagner had been exclusively working for WWE’s NXT brand, he had been considered as a main roster talent within the company. Meltzer also reported that many within NXT were not even aware that talent cuts had been planned and only found out after the releases were made public.

Among those who had been released included Jinder Mahal. Mahal recently reflected on Twitter about his recent release from WWE and the future of his wrestling career. Mahal stated “Hey, it’s The Maharaja. It’s been an eventful week to say the least, but it’s all good. I want to first say thank you. Thank you to anyone who reached out. All the love, support, DMs, phone calls, texts, comments — I appreciate all of you guys. I also want to thank everyone in the locker room. All the guys and girls, everyone working backstage behind the scenes — thank you. Twelve years, two runs. Got to see and do amazing things. So many dream matches. Traveled the world. Got to do things that I never thought I’d be able to accomplish. Championships, being in a rock band — it’s been an amazing journey. But what’s next? What’s next for The Maharaja? I’ve been here before. That time I was a kid, but now I’m a man. I will only present myself in a way that I want to. I will only do things that I want to. I will only go places that I want to. I still have many goals, many dream matches, many places I want to go. Where do I make an impact? India, Europe, Japan, Canada, Red Hook section of Brooklyn? Stay tuned. You got about 11 more weeks. Maharaja out.” (Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com)

In a recent interview with the Busted Open Radio podcast, Cameron Grimes gave his thoughts about Logan Paul being one of the people who had reached out to him following his release from WWE. Grimes stated “Really the best part of everyone that has reached out to me is, I got more of, ‘You’re a great person,’ than people saying I was a good wrestler. Over the last year and a half, just being able to talk to everybody and hang out with everybody, that’s all I wanted to do, is be a good person. That really helped. This is going to sound weird because of the level of star he is. Logan Paul reached out to me. I thought that was pretty cool. He’s a megastar, really, even beyond wrestling. He reached out and said stuff to me. That helped me feel good. Over the past year, Shane Helms has always been very pivotal in my career. He did so much for me. He’s the guy behind Logan Paul. No one knows that because he doesn’t want to say it. He’s the guy behind Logan Paul. Every time Logan is going to have a match, he’s the one helping him. In the past couple of matches, I was Shane’s helper to Logan. I got to be around them and help that. That was something really cool. This WrestleMania, I got to kind of be a part of that triple threat match and help put some pieces together for that. That was incredible for me. Literally, two weeks ago, I was at the biggest WrestleMania of all time and sitting in Gorilla for a match that I kind of put pieces to.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

WWE announced two matches for the card of next week’s WWE SmackDown show on May 3rd in Décines-Charpieu, France:

WWE Tag Team Championship – Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford) vs. A-Town Down Under (Austin Theory & Grayson Waller) (c)
Authors of Pain (Akam & Rezar) vs. New Catch Republic (Tyler Bate & Pete Dunne)