A wrestling promotion was reportedly in negotiations with Paramount+ for a potential deal a little over a year ago, but those talks ultimately went cold.
The subject came up following Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery clearing another major legal hurdle on Monday.
During the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com, Dave Meltzer revealed that an unnamed wrestling company had been negotiating with Paramount+ at the time.
“There is a story that I was told that I did not know, that there was a company, a wrestling company, that was negotiating with Paramount+ a little over a year ago,” Meltzer said. “And they did not have a written deal. They were confident in a deal.”
According to Meltzer, the promotion had been dealing with high-ranking Paramount executives, although the situation changed amid the Skydance merger.
“They were negotiating with people at Paramount, top people, one of whom ended up losing his position in the Skydance merger, because people lose their position,” he continued. “One of them was still there.”
Meltzer said the company believed it was in a good position to land on Paramount+, particularly because the streaming service did not have professional wrestling programming at the time. However, nothing had been signed when Paramount’s UFC deal entered the picture.
“But the company was confident that they would get on Paramount+ because, at the time, there was no wrestling on Paramount+,” Meltzer said. “And as it came down to the wire, they had nothing signed or anything like that, and then the UFC deal came in.”
According to Meltzer, that development effectively brought the wrestling negotiations to a halt.
“And once the UFC deal came in, all of a sudden everything got cold with them completely,” he added.
Meltzer also discussed what Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery could potentially mean for AEW. He noted that Paramount CEO David Ellison and AEW President Tony Khan know each other through their NFL connections and have previously spoken.
“David Ellison and Tony Khan know each other from the NFL,” Meltzer said. “I know that they’ve talked. Tony has clearly been very, very optimistic of the idea of, number one, getting this show in more homes due to getting on Paramount+, getting more backing.”
Meltzer stressed that Khan has not publicly discussed AEW potentially airing on CBS, although he said others within the industry have raised the possibility of a special appearing on the network.
“He has not talked of the potential of CBS, but other people in the business have talked about the potential of CBS,” Meltzer said. “For a special or something, a one-time deal like UFC gets.”
Another possibility discussed was Paramount potentially purchasing AEW’s pay-per-view rights under a model similar to its UFC arrangement.
“And the idea of buying the pay-per-views like they do with UFC, which guarantees AEW the money and will put the pay-per-views in way more homes, so a lot more people will be watching it, which is probably better in the long run,” Meltzer added.
