On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed his tweet that led to speculation about the future of Monday Night Raw. Meltzer tweeted, “Things are changing greatly. Let’s just say things changed greatly with Raw negotiations from a few weeks ago. And Punk is a huge part of the selling point.”
On WOR, Meltzer noted that about a month ago, WWE was shopping Monday Night Raw around to networks such as Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney’s FX. He also noted the possibility about Raw possibly staying with USA Network.
“They would like to get close to $400 million,” Meltzer said about the rights fees. “I don’t think they’re gonna get $400 million but they’re shopping it around and WBD obviously being one of them. WBD seemed to be dead and it’s not dead. With Punk there and everything like that, it’s not dead. It’s not like people should go oh my God this and that with AEW. There’s no way of knowing anything more other than they did have a meeting and it’s not dead. That’s all.”
Meltzer continued, “WWE as far as the Raw deal is the belief is that they’re finalizing pretty soon. [Paul] Levesque was at Raw [on] Monday. [He] missed the one Raw if you remember because of whatever they were doing. They’re trying to close that deal. That’s pretty much it. Punk opened up what may have been a shut door. How open that door is or what is gonna transpire, I don’t know. Punk, he’s a significant player and that’s one of the reasons he’s gonna be at the house show in Los Angeles this week because I’m sure that the people who they are courting — everyone’s headquarters is in L.A. I’m sure that they’re gonna invite everyone that they’re courting there and figuring that they’re gonna see, with Punk and Dom, they picked the right opponent for just a great reaction to go look, this is what you’re getting, this is the show we’re selling. The belief is it’s coming down relatively soon [but] it’s one of those things there’s no rush either. It could come down in 6 months. They’re in negotiations and AEW is in negotiations. These negotiations are going to be gigantic to the future of wrestling in many ways, depending on who gets what, depending on the days of the week, depending on the counters.”
Meltzer said that he doesn’t expect SmackDown to stay on Friday and it’s possible that Raw could move to a different night. He also said that there will probably be some news coming out within the next couple of weeks.
“I think that there will be stuff in the next couple of weeks most likely,” Meltzer said. “It could be the final deal…it could end up with the status quo. It’s not impossible. It could end up with incredible differences. Just gotta wait it out and see. The main thing though is WWE and WBD is not a dead deal and it appeared to be a dead deal before. If they take the deal, it would require WBD to spend well over $350 million per year…WBD may not want to go that high anyway.”
Another interesting thing mentioned by Meltzer is that WBD has a lot of channels and based on the fact that the NXT deal with CW does not have an exclusivity clause, it’s not a lock that there would be an exclusivity clause with WWE and WBD. In other words, it’s possible that WBD could have WWE and AEW on their networks but it all depends on how much WBD can afford because they also want to keep the NBA.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit F4WOnline.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
