WWE Interested in *POSSIBLY* Buying Top Indie Company

[Jack-Hammer]

The WON reports that there are talks of WWE possibly buying Evolve and airing Evolve content as a show, eventually, on the WWE Network. Uncle Dave's report further states that there's been some internal talk of this happening since WWE and Evolve began working together a few years back. Vince has also toyed with the notion of airing content from other indie companies like Progress Wrestling and Insane Championship Wrestling, but keeps going back and forth on it so who knows what's what at this point.

In my opinion, if Vince is looking to buy someone out for the purpose of ultimately using the company as another brand under the WWE umbrella, I think he'd be better off looking at Ring of Honor or New Japan. They'd be more expensive, of course, but it's not as if Vince doesn't have the money. WWE's stock closed at $75.37 a share and is worth fairly close to $6 billion; Vince owns a very, very substantial share of that stock so you have to figure that his net worth is well north of $2 billion, maybe even closer to $3 billion. In the long run, I think he'd get more out of putting some of his vast fortune into something like buying ROH or New Japan, extending the WWE brand in various ways, instead of relaunching the XFL, which just seems like throwing money away.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

As a fan, I don't want this to happen. WWE is much better when it has competition and has to actually put effort into their shows. Since WCW died and especially the last few years, WWE's product just hasn't been consistently good. The last couple of months of Raw has been maybe the most boring and complacent the product has ever been. However it doesn't even matter because there's so many fans that will watch each week no matter what. Why is that exactly? Why watch a product that you claim to hate so much? Well for a number of reasons. Partially because of all the talent, the history, and the (admittedly few and far between) moments when WWE IS very good. However it's mostly due to how big WWE is. WWE is wrestling today. When people think of wrestling, they think of WWE.

So what does this have to do with Evolve? Well they've shown that they can be (relatively) successful without WWE. They don't need WWE, and although WWE's involvement wouldn't hurt, they can stand on their own. I don't know that much about them, but at the very least they've been around 8 years. If anything, I want to see more companies like Evolve. I want to see companies outside of WWE grow, and although they won't compete with WWE, they're at least an alternative.

Besides WWE doesn't need Evolve. They're just going to sign most of the biggest names and put them in NXT anyways. But if they do, keep Vince far away from it and book it like NXT. We don't really need another show, but it wouldn't hurt.

 

[d_henderson1810]

The WON reports that there are talks of WWE possibly buying Evolve and airing Evolve content as a show, eventually, on the WWE Network. Uncle Dave's report further states that there's been some internal talk of this happening since WWE and Evolve began working together a few years back. Vince has also toyed with the notion of airing content from other indie companies like Progress Wrestling and Insane Championship Wrestling, but keeps going back and forth on it so who knows what's what at this point.

In my opinion, if Vince is looking to buy someone out for the purpose of ultimately using the company as another brand under the WWE umbrella, I think he'd be better off looking at Ring of Honor or New Japan. They'd be more expensive, of course, but it's not as if Vince doesn't have the money. WWE's stock closed at $75.37 a share and is worth fairly close to $6 billion; Vince owns a very, very substantial share of that stock so you have to figure that his net worth is well north of $2 billion, maybe even closer to $3 billion. In the long run, I think he'd get more out of putting some of his vast fortune into something like buying ROH or New Japan, extending the WWE brand in various ways, instead of relaunching the XFL, which just seems like throwing money away.

I eventually hope Vince buys Impact Wrestling, so that we can get TNA content on the Network and be able to watch things like the Kurt Angle v A.J. Styles "Ironman" Match or Gail Kim v Taryn Terrell "Last Knockout Standing Match".

 

[TheEnd1978]

As a fan, I don't want this to happen. WWE is much better when it has competition and has to actually put effort into their shows. Since WCW died and especially the last few years, WWE's product just hasn't been consistently good. The last couple of months of Raw has been maybe the most boring and complacent the product has ever been. However it doesn't even matter because there's so many fans that will watch each week no matter what. Why is that exactly? Why watch a product that you claim to hate so much? Well for a number of reasons. Partially because of all the talent, the history, and the (admittedly few and far between) moments when WWE IS very good. However it's mostly due to how big WWE is. WWE is wrestling today. When people think of wrestling, they think of WWE.

So what does this have to do with Evolve? Well they've shown that they can be (relatively) successful without WWE. They don't need WWE, and although WWE's involvement wouldn't hurt, they can stand on their own. I don't know that much about them, but at the very least they've been around 8 years. If anything, I want to see more companies like Evolve. I want to see companies outside of WWE grow, and although they won't compete with WWE, they're at least an alternative.

Besides WWE doesn't need Evolve. They're just going to sign most of the biggest names and put them in NXT anyways. But if they do, keep Vince far away from it and book it like NXT. We don't really need another show, but it wouldn't hurt.

Actually Evolve has been hurting for some time so WWE would be saving them it's why they have been sending them talent like Adam Cole to pull in a better gate.

 

[TheEnd1978]

WWE could easily do this and set up their system like baseball they are the "majors" NXT is "AAA" Evolve could be "AA" and so on and so on. It would be kinda smart and very different.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

WWE could easily do this and set up their system like baseball they are the "majors" NXT is "AAA" Evolve could be "AA" and so on and so on. It would be kinda smart and very different.

To be honest, that's sort of the feeling I've been getting. You've got NXT, then you've got NXT UK about to start up and WWE has strong working relationships with Evolve, Progress and ICW. I don't know if that's what they're going for, of course, but I could see some sort of farm system come about.

When it comes to competition from other companies, WWE doesn't have to worry about anyone when it comes to any sort of traditional competition. What I mean by that is that there's almost zero chance of anyone becoming as big or bigger than WWE in our lifetime. Chris Jericho recently did his podcast with Dave Meltzer as a guest and Jericho stated that it's possible for other companies to be successful, that they can find a niche for themselves as alternatives to WWE but that no one was going to oust WWE from being the biggest, most well known and most successful wrestling company in the world. Jericho said that WWE is far too ingrained in American pop culture and that it's simply making too much money for anyone to even attempt to touch, which Meltzer himself even had to agree with.

As long as a wrestling company is out there trying to expand its audience, trying to make more money for itself and draw in fans by offering a genuine alternative then they have a chance. If they try to go the TNA route of wanting to go to "war" with WWE, try to knock WWE off the top of the mountain, then they're going to get crushed by sheer numbers. Don't worry about what WWE is doing, don't do something stupid like "call WWE out" and leave yourself open to the possibility of a possible working relationship. If companies aren't interested in that, then just stay focused on themselves and what they're doing and don't even mention WWE. Within the next year or two, WWE will be taking in well over $1 billion in revenue a year, they just finalized two separate billion dollar TV deals for Raw & SmackDown Live and they're just simply too big. When it comes down to sheer audience size, brand recognition and sheer dollars, every other active promotion in the world combined doesn't equal what WWE pulls in.

Of course, you're going to have fans who want other companies to do the exact opposite because they want another "war" between the promotions. After all, why would they care? They're not the ones risking anything, like jobs and money, if Evolve or whomever wound up losing. It's not just a matter of money, it's also about connections; Vince McMahon has a lot of connections with a lot of prominent figures in the TV industry and with the owners of a lot of prime venues like MSG. ROH was set to have a show at MSG later this year but Vince put the kibosh on that right quick.