Nick Khan was a guest on Tuesday’s episode of “The Pat McAfee Show” to discuss the news that WWE Monday Night RAW will be moving to Netflix in January of 2025.
Additionally, the WWE President commented on Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn stepping away from WWE’s day-to-day operations, his relationship with Vince and Triple H, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn stepping back from WWE: “There would be no WWE without Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn. Both, in my opinion, the greatest of all time in terms of what they did and what they contributed to build what is now a massive enterprise. In terms of the transaction and moving it forward, Vince was the controlling shareholder. He decided it was time to transact. He allowed me to sit side by side with him in the process to hear all of the different pitches. It was a robust marketplace. Endeavor had the best proposal we felt for our shareholders and here we are with the Netflix deal being announced today with Dwayne Johnson being added to our board of directors. We feel like it’s a great start to what should be a a beautiful next chapter at WWE.”
On when the Netflix deal came together: “We think we’re in business with two great partners. What we did once the Smackdown deal closed, which will shift Smackdown over from Fox to USA starting this October 1st, we focused or hyper focused on Raw. It was a robust marketplace. We had a number of meetings. There was a lot of interest. There were a number of offers. And at the end of the day, to be the first movers with Netflix live on a consistent basis. So yes, I saw the Chris Rock special too, and the reality show after show, and they’re doing the Golf Pro Am, which was all great programming. But 52 weeks a year, we’re turnkey as you’ve lived it with us. The fact that they could come to us and say, yeah, we strike a deal, and you guys do all the rest, is something that they like, and certainly something that we thought was in our direct wheelhouse. It came together over the matter of a couple of months. And we think it’s a great deal.”
On his history with Triple H: “Paul Levesque, the King of Kings, Triple H. He’s the one who introduced me to WWE. Hunter. He’s the one who first introduced me. So when I was an agent in my prior profession and I was trying to get into the WWE business Paul had called me, unsolicited call, and this is when Tim Tebow had just gotten cut by the Patriots. Paul called me, he said, hey, I just want to introduce myself, my name is Paul Levesque. I said, oh yeah, Triple H, I know who you are, I remember you as Terra Ryzing. Yes, that’s who I remember. From WCW, exactly. I said, you are, he’s oh, WCW? I said, yeah, I know WCW, grew up a fan, I was an usher at WrestleMania 9 at Caesars Palace. I said what’s going on? He said, hey, what do you think of Tim Tebow against the Big Show?…and whatever that Wrestlemania was after the Patriots run, and I said I said, what do you think it, he offered some financial terms, I called Tim at the time, what do you think, Tim and I had, then, a top secret private meeting, Tim Tebow, myself, Vince McMahon, Triple H, and Anaheim, California, about that, ultimately it didn’t happen, and Triple H and I remained in touch, and over time, he was the one who said to me, hey, you I think Vince may want to meet with you. I think you ‘told me’ you’re going to be in Dallas this weekend. Dallas was where RAW was. I think you told me you’re going to be in Dallas. That’s good that you’re going to be there, because if I told Vince you’re flying in for the meeting, he’d say, don’t do it, I may have to cancel, it’s RAW, It’s RAW, but I know you’re going to be there. Plan on meeting with Vince. I went the night before, because, of course, you don’t want to go day of and be late, and this and that, nobody wants to hear the, hey, my flight was delayed nonsense. So I went, I sat in a hotel room, Paul called me, he said Vince is ready to meet. I went to Vince’s office, met with him, I pitched what I had to say, and we shook hands on a deal and here we are.”
On his relationship with Vince McMahon: “Look, here’s what I found with Vince. In a private setting, if said respectfully, you can say anything you want to him. You can disagree with any point of view, and the folks who have succeeded tremendously at WWE, Kevin Dunn, I’m not talking about the, our in ring superstars, I’m talking about the executives on the outside, Kevin Dunn, Paul Levesque many others. They all had that trait, where you understood, this is the boss. He is the controlling shareholder, the founder of the company, this and that. So you’re not going to call him out in a room of people if you disagree with something. You’re not going to be rude. He’s polite by nature as he preferred to be polite but he’s certainly comfortable if it has to go a different route. So what I found with Vince was I could say anything to him directly in person as long as it was in a respectful way. And he’d always hear it and often times he’d agree with it. In terms of how often I’m in touch with him, I just saw him today. At the New York Stock Exchange. He looks amazing.”
On the future of WWE PLEs: “Our current partner in the United States on all the premium live events like WrestleMania is Peacock and NBCU. They’ve been tremendous partners. This deal with Netflix is for the premium live events outside of the United States. Excluding certain territories where we have existing deals. Like India, for example, but it’s Raw, globally. Again, a few exceptions there. But it’s really a global enterprise with Netflix that should build to something even greater.”
