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MMA/Pro Wrestling News

UFC  And WWE  To Close Merger Next Week, Make New York Stock Exchange Debut As TKO Group

UFC  And WWE  To Close Merger Next Week, Make New York Stock Exchange Debut As TKO Group

UFC remains world's number one combat sports promotion in almost all metrics

WWE remains world's number one pro wrestling promotion in all metrics

Endeavor Group management enjoyed strong relationship and mutual respect for WWE's Vince McMahon many years ago; Led to official talks...

UFC parent Endeavor Group and WWE advised they expect to close the planned merger of UFC and WWE on September 12th. That’s ahead of schedule as Endeavor stated in August it expected the deal to close in mid-to-late September. This can be viewed as a positive sign.

Endeavor and WWE announced a deal last spring for the Ari Emanuel-led firm to take control of WWE and merge it into a new, stand-alone entity with UFC. The pro wrestling and mixed martial arts powerhouse will be called TKO Group Holdings and trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Valued at $21 billion, TKO will be a subsidiary of Endeavor, with 51% control. WWE (Raw, SmackDown) will control 49%.

Emanuel will be CEO. Dana White will continue as president of UFC.

Vince McMahon, WWE’s longtime leader, executive chairman and major shareholder, who masterminded the deal with Endeavor, was set as executive chair of the new company’s board. In early August, WWE announced federal law enforcement agents had executed a search warrant and served a federal grand jury subpoena on McMahon although no charges had been brought. WWE CEO Nick Khan also advised then that McMahon was on a medical leave of absence until further notice following spinal surgery.

WWE launched an internal probe of McMahon in 2022 to investigate allegations of payments to women, which it found had totaled close to $20 million and that caused it to revise several quarterly financial statements. The probe concluded last November and McMahon paid the company $17.4 million for costs incurred.

“As previously disclosed on June 17, 2022, a Special Committee of the Board of Directors was formed on June 15, 2022 to investigate allegations of misconduct by Vince McMahon. As previously disclosed, the Special Committee investigation was completed during the fourth quarter of 2022. However, related government investigations remain ongoing,” the company said in SEC filing August 2.

The vast majority of pro wrestling fans and media are excited about the merger. Some staff in the WWE are understood to have some mixed feelings with the deal as in the history of company mergers it's not uncommon for some jobs to be lost for cost efficiencies. The higher one performers, in the ring, and/or in the office and corporate environment, the safer their job would likely be. 

Staff, management and wrestlers continue to step up to impress the powers that be. At this stage nobody wants to hear the famous words heard from time to time, "We wish you well with your future endeavours".

Buzz remains strong for the WWE coming off record breaking numbers for a string of its recent premium live events (formally known as Pay-Per-Views), and the UFC  is currently presenting a very solid card in Australia - UFC 293, coming off Fight Week down under. UFC media and media related events have been packed and have achieved worldwide and strong industry news coverage. You can bet the UFC (and WWE) powers that be are watching closely - we already know they follow the news, online news and social media buzz. 

Little wonder wrestlers and legends to be such as John Cena, Grayson Waller and Logan Paul fit so well into the WWE marketing and media machine. Pub, sports bar, watercooler and cafe talk includes potential dream matches with the UFC's 'Bam Bam' (into The Bloodline), Volk vs Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Sean Strickland has the "killer heel or mega babyface" persona, just as long as WWE PR can control the beast. Everything is a risk, especially in the world of MMA meets UFC, but TKO and the brains trust has managed things beautifully over the course of this history making deal says Media Man.

Pro Wrestling and USA Wrestling News Update

Gable Steveson GableSteveson  Steps Back from 2023 World Championships

USA Wrestling has revealed that 2020 Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson will not be participating in the upcoming 2023 Senior World Championships set for September 16-24 in Belgrade, Serbia. Steveson, a Minneapolis native, had previously signaled his return to freestyle wrestling with a victory at the 2023 U.S. Open in Las Vegas and a subsequent win at Final X in Newark, N.J.

Steveson has appeared on the NXT @WWENXT pro wrestling broadcast a handful of time over the past year.  He's done some promos, one or two match interference and had officially one match. The sports legend has a love and passion for pro wrestling and the NXT contract has enabled more financial stability.

Steveson's absence from the tournament clears the way for Mason Parris to step in as his replacement in the 125 kg men's freestyle category. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., Parris holds number 2 position on the 2023-24 U.S. Senior Men’s Freestyle National Team. This event marks his inaugural appearance at a Senior World Championships representing Team USA.

2020 Olympic champion Gable Steveson (Minneapolis, Minn./Gopher WC RTC) has notified USA Wrestling that he will not be competing in the 2023 Senior World Championships at 125 kg in Belgrade, Serbia in September.

Replacing Steveson in the 125 kg position in men’s freestyle at the World Championships is Final X runner-up Mason Parris (Ann Arbor, Mich./Titan Mercury WC/Cliff Keen WC). Parris, who is No. 2 on the 2023-24 U.S. Senior Men’s Freestyle National Team, will be competing in his first Senior World Championships for Team USA.

Steveson returned to freestyle wrestling for the first time since the Olympic Games in Tokyo when he won the 2023 U.S. Open in Las Vegas in April, then secured his position on the 2023 U.S. Senior World Team with his victory at Final X in Newark, N.J. in June.

Parris will compete at the Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, September 16 and 17.

Parris was a 2019 Junior World champion in men’s freestyle at 125 kg, competing in Tallin, Estonia. Other freestyle achievements include a 2022 U.S. Senior Open title, runner-up in 2023 Final X, second place at the 2023 U.S. Open, runner-up at the 2021 World Team Trials and a third-place finish at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. Parris most recently won a gold medal at the United World Wrestling Ranking Tournament in Hungary.

He has a 2023 NCAA champion for Michigan at 285 pounds. Parris won the 2023 Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top college wrestler, going undefeated for the Wolverines with a 33-0 record, with 21 bonus point wins.

Parris was a 2021 NCAA runner-up. He was also fifth in the 2022 NCAA Championships. In 2020, when the NCAA Championships were cancelled, Parris was named NWCA First-Team All-American.

A native of Lawrenceburg, Ind., Parris won three Indiana state high school titles for Lawrenceburg High School.

News

Streaming vs Cable Channel news; Writers Strike shines more light; Streaming entertainment disruption to business models afoot

Most U.S and global streaming services continue to be unprofitable, with Neflix being the exception, with most studios still shooting for 2025 to break even. The subscriber televison business continues to decline in quality most people believe, but not all will admit. Sports and news media channels continue to seek out other options and business models. 

On Friday morning, Charter Communications held a conference call with Wall Street analysts where it said it was prepared to abandon its video business if it couldn’t come to a “transformative” deal with The Walt Disney Co. to try and salvage the pay TV bundle. The company is one of the top pay TV providers domestically, with 14.7 million subscribers — just short of leader Comcast’s 14.9 million but above satellite rivals DirecTV (12.3 million) and Dish (6.9 million). Charter, like those other pay TV firms, has also lost video subs, about 200,000, in its latest quarter, per a Leichtman Research tally.

“We’re on the edge of a precipice. We’re either moving forward with a new collaborative video model, or we’re moving on,” Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said on the call. “This is not a typical carriage dispute. It’s significant for Charter, and we think it’s even more significant for programmers and the broader video ecosystem.”

Charter, in a Powerpoint presentation that accompanied the call, wrote that “programmers are caught in a self-imposed dilemma as they have moved content to their DTC products for short-term profit maximization and their management teams are not incentivized to drive business for the long-term,” arguing that studios like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery chose to wreck their pay TV business (by moving most original shows to subscription video on-demand services, and pushing for higher and higher fees for sports channels) to pursue the streaming riches that Netflix promised.

“As an industry we failed to come together quickly to create that consumer friendly product,” Winfrey said. “Programmers then made high value content available for anyone to access on websites, and soon thereafter through emerging streaming applications such as Hulu, which was initially free. At the same time programmers believed that their content libraries could create so called incremental streaming service revenues by selling this content to Netflix.”

Media Man Wrap-Up

Something is going to give. It's a perfect storm approaching. This comes are most streaming TV viewers globally are turning off the paid services in favor of other freed channels such as Tubi @Tubi , YouTube @YouTube /YouTube Movies, and seeking out other TV streaming channels with more legacy content such as Australia's SBS On Demand @SBSOnDemand   Some people are even focussing more on making more of their own content, or just spending more time in nature, at the beach and in non- tech endeavors.

(Sources: Wires, AP, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Charter Communications, The Wall Street Journal and X @X (formally Twitter buzz)

Bitcoin/Cryptocurrent News

Elon Musk Revealed To Be ‘Quietly’ Funding Crypto Rival To Bitcoin Amid Price Crash

Elon Musk, the TeslaTSLA @Tesla billionaire who embarked on a mission to transform Twitter into the X "everything app" last year, has been eyeing a major "PayPal update" that could cause bitcoin and crypto price chaos.

The bitcoin price rally this year has stalled in recent weeks—though crypto traders are braced for a "crazy" September—dragging down crypto prices and Elon Musk's "fav" bitcoin rival dogecoin, a meme-based fork of bitcoin created as a "joke."

Now, Musk has been revealed to have been "quietly" funding dogecoin development—even as the dogecoin price has collapsed 90% from its all-time high, crashing along with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Before snatching Twitter (now X @X ) last year for a staggering $44 billion, Musk considered creating "a new social-media platform based on the blockchain" that "could have a payment system using dogecoin, the semi-serious cryptocurrency whose development he had been quietly funding," Musk biographer Walter Isaacson wrote in an excerpt of his new book, titled simply Elon Musk, published in the Wall Street Journal.

The level of Musk's funding or investment in dogecoin isn't clear but he has previously said he wants to "upgrade" dogecoin to "beat bitcoin hands down" and "become the currency of Earth."

In July, Musk, who has said he personally owns the cryptocurrencies bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin, quietly added the dogecoin Ð symbol to his X account amid a flurry of interactions with dogecoin fan accounts—with bitcoin and crypto market watchers predicting Musk's plans for X could be an "absolute game-changer."

Dogecoin which blasted into the crypto top ten in 2021 alongside a meme and influencer-fueled rally, crashed back along with the bitcoin price and other major cryptocurrencies through 2022 but has held onto some of its gains, making the combined dogecoin network worth around $9 billion.

In recent months, Musk has reportedly been plotting with Wall Street executives to turn X (Twitter) into an "updated version of PayPal" and has recently been on a state money transmitting license acquiring spree.

So customers, are you ready for "The Everything App" with crypto plus on the side and much more from X Corp! 

Quotes in the spirit of UFC Fight Week down under in Sydney, Australia

The Art Of War, by Sun Tzu

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”

“If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles"

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter" - George Washington

"War - An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will" - George Washington

Combat Sports News

UFC @UFC 293. Sunday, 10th September, 2023 Sydney, Australia  

Israel Adesanya aka "The Cringe Lord" per SS quote, or aka "The Stylebender" vs Sean Strickland @SStricklandMMA aka "Tarzan" for The Middleweight Title  

The vast majority of Aussie fight fans have really taken a liking to Tarzan er Strickland, whose verbal punches sting almost as hard as his hits in the Octagon (or on the street or anywhere else).

USA/Australian Alliance vs China for the main event says some segments of fans and news media; Not much mention of New Zealand. Monster vs Nails and 'The Puppy King'.  Cheers to a hell of a tough fight for the (current) champ and challenger.

Tai "Bam Bam" Tuivasa @bambamtuivasa vs Alexander Volkov @AlexDragoVolkov

Combat Sports News

UFC  293. Sunday, 10th September, 2023

Sydney, Australia

Israel Adesanya @stylebender  vs Sean Strickland @SStricklandMMA for The Middleweight Title

Tai Tuivasa @bambamtuivasa vs Alexander Volkov @AlexDragoVolkov  

Manel Kape vs Felipe dos Santos

Justin Tafa vs Austen Lane

Tyson Pedro sv Anton Turkalj

Undercard:

Carlos Ulberg vs Jung Da-Un

Jack Jenkins vs Chepe Mariscal

Jamie Mullarkey vs John Makdessi

Nasrat Haqparast vs Landon Quinones

Mike Mathetha vs Charlie Radtke

Shane Young vs Gabriel Miranda

Kevin Jousset vs Kiefer Crosbie

Wrestling and Surfing Connection!

Hulk Hogan on Joe Rogan

Hogan: Wanted to be Laird Hamilton

"Wishes He Was Laird Hamilton". "I wanted to be him."

"That's the surfer guy right?" Hogan asks.

"Yeah, he's a freak, like a real physical freak. The guy's a maniac about training and recovery and nutrition," Rogan answers.

"This is really gonna sound weird to say because I've never admitted this in front of anybody, but I wanted to be him."

Rogan : "You wanted to be Laird Hamilton?"

"When I saw him ride those big waves bro. That big, tall, blond guy that was built like crazy. I said, man, I could have been him instead of me". Hogan.

"That's crazy, 'cause you're Hulk Hogan," Rogan says.

"Could you imagine riding one of those waves, bro? The rush?"

"I have several friends who are big wave surfers and I am in awe" Rogan.

"On a short board. I mean that's insane. Bro, you fall off, you might not come out of that thing". Hogan.

"Do you surf?" Rogan's co-host.

Hogan says his former lawyer, who was president of the Malibu Surf Club, taught him to surf on "little baby two to three-foot breakers."

He'd also rent boards and surf Diamond Head when he'd visit Hawaii.

Video/Audio via Spotify