JBL says the WWE and Disney partnership is a huge opportunity, and that the part he cares about is what it could do for the next generation of fans.
Mark Shapiro said at the Goldman Sachs conference this week that TKO is working with Disney on special events for 2027, aimed at bringing the two audiences together. Conrad Thompson raised it with JBL on Something to Wrestle With, noting that hardcore fans who want an edgier product will be sceptical.
JBL’s answer was one word to start with.
“Yeah, huge,” he said.
Where he took it was the thing he says wrestling has stopped doing well, which is handing the product down.
“One of the things that was always happening in wrestling was that people like me and you would take kids and say, man, I remember when I was watching Hogan. I remember watching the Von Erichs. I remember watching Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen and all these great guys,” JBL said. “Boy, that guy kind of reminds me of him. Then you tell your kid or your grandkid about it. That always happened in wrestling. And if the age is getting older, then that must not be happening.”
He sees the partnership as a way to restart it.
“This is a perfect opportunity to do that. You show all the great stuff in wrestling,” he said. “Now you can introduce them. This guy was kind of like Gunther. Here’s Gunther, by the way, who’s headlining a pay-per-view coming up.”
JBL said the depth is there whether or not people know it.
“You’ve had awesome people in every single generation. It’s so unbelievable to think about the territories, Wildfire Tommy Rich and so many different guys that never were global superstars but were massive superstars,” he said.
He told a story against his own generation to make the point. When the WWE Network launched, he says he had a warning for Vince McMahon.
“I told Vince, whatever you do, don’t put any Bobby Heenan and Roddy Piper on there, because people are going to realise that we’re not as good as them,” JBL said. “Because those guys were freaking awesome.”
Thompson’s argument alongside it was that Disney has spent years building attractions people never age out of, and that a generation of children kept away from the product during the Attitude Era may simply never have come back. JBL agreed that bringing children in is the long-term health of the business.
That led into the thing he has wanted for years, which is a proper WWE Hall of Fame as a building rather than a ceremony. JBL sits on the board of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, Iowa alongside Gerald Brisco and has been to most of the major ones.
“I think forever that they should have done this,” JBL said.
His example of the missed opportunity is the venue WWE ran on Broadway.
“I thought the restaurant in Times Square should have been more of a Hall of Fame. I think that’s one of the mistakes Vince made,” he said. “That was a huge facility. It was a perfect location. It’s where the Hard Rock Cafe is located now in Times Square. I thought you should have had more memorabilia from Andre and Hogan and all these guys.”
He said the reason it went the other way was McMahon’s instinct.
“Vince wanted everything going forward. Here’s The Rock, here’s Stone Cold, here’s all these guys. You wanted everything going forward, not going backwards,” JBL said. “I thought we could have done both.”
What he thinks wrestling has that other sports do not is characters rather than statistics.
“There’s so much about sports that you go back and it’s more sports. But when you go back in wrestling, it’s different characters,” he said. “They may be similar to Gorgeous George or Freddie Blassie or Roddy Piper or Hogan or Hacksaw. But they’re so different, and it sparks memories in people to have all this video up, and to have the Hacksaw vest, the Hacksaw board, things like that.”
He was happy to picture the version inside a theme park.
“Maybe they put it within a Disney park. Maybe now you go to the Disney park instead of going to the rides. You go see the Hulk Hogan exhibit,” JBL said. “You want to see a life size statue of Andre the Giant. You want to see an old Iron Sheik promo. You want to see all this stuff that you heard so much about, and perhaps was part of your childhood.”
His conclusion was that the opportunity has been sitting there.
“I think this is a terrific opportunity for WWE that for some reason has never materialised, and hopefully it does now,” he said.
The Times Square venue opened as WWF New York in 1999 and closed in 2003. Nothing has been announced about a WWE Hall of Fame attraction, and Shapiro’s comments referred only to special events with Disney in 2027. WWE’s Hall of Fame currently exists as an annual induction ceremony during WrestleMania week, with no permanent home and no physical collection open to the public.
