WWE’s new regime may have big plans internationally, but don’t count on seeing a promotion be acquired anytime soon.
Last month, WWE co-CEOs Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan appeared at the Wells Fargo TMT Summit to address plans in the post-Vince McMahon era.
At the event, Stephanie McMahon spoke about plans for WWE to branch out “international is the focus for us.”
Problems
WWE’s plans to stretch its reach even further across the world is nothing new, but the company has yet to establish its brand with a promotion outside of the U.S. and the UK.
Speaking on the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained why WWE will continue to struggle.
“The key is that they have a lot of money right now, and so they want to do mergers and acquisitions and stuff like that. Their business is wrestling so they’re looking at buying some wrestling companies. Them trying to run something in Mexico is probably a bad idea.
Japanese companies do not want to sell to Americans.
Dave Meltzer on one of WWE’s potential struggles for global expansion.
“Them buying a Japanese company [is a bad idea] if they can because it’s already so hard. Japanese companies do not want to sell to Americans. It’s hard to do. They tried to buy Stardom, but Stardom sold to Bushiroad. They tried to buy NOAH, but NOAH sold to [CyberFight.] There are a million companies in Japan they could buy. I suppose they could run them, but there’s not really a lot of money to be made. I think they would screw up in Mexico. I don’t think they would understand the culture, and Japan has an even more difficult culture to understand than Mexico.”
Boxing
WWE’s talk of branching out internationally is nothing new, but talk about boxing took everyone by surprise.
At the event, McMahon said that WWE is interested in getting into the world of professional boxing, saying it would need to line up with WWE’s standards.
On his show, Meltzer explained that boxing is an industry WWE would be wise to avoid.
Boxing would be the one that would surprise me. Dana White is a big Boxing fan and for years he’s talked about doing something in boxing. And when push came to shove [he didn’t.] If you want to get into boxing, you have two choices. You either work at such a small level and make no money, or you try and do something at the big level. And the problem is at the big level there’s high risk because the guarantees for the big-name fighters are so high. They’re way higher than UFC guys are used to paying their fighters. And they are WAY higher than WWE is used to paying.
“I don’t know if that’s a business they want to get into. Especially right now.”
Dave Meltzer.
“I don’t know if that’s a business they want to get into. Especially right now, because boxing’s not really that popular. They have a few names that are big. If they go into the gimmick side, they are late in the game. We’ve already seen the Anderson Silva Vs. Jake Paul Pay-Per-View didn’t do well.”
Meltzer concluded that he expects WWE to back off the idea of getting into boxing once they have a closer look at the financials of the matter.
