WWE Plaintiffs Seek Sanctions Over Deleted Messages | Pollock & Thurston

·1 hr 14 min·5 clips

Vince McMahon and Nick Khan allegedly used Signal's auto-delete feature to avoid preserving messages in a billion-dollar merger lawsuit.

The episode opens with hosts John Pollock and Brandon Thurston introducing the week's topics, focusing on business and legal developments in wrestling. They dive into a WWE shareholder lawsuit where plaintiffs allege spoliation, as Vince McMahon and Nick Khan used Signal's auto-delete feature, failing to preserve messages despite legal hold notices. The hosts explain spoliation and its implications, noting parallels with the Janelle Grant case. They detail a December 13, 2022, meeting with McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Nick Khan, Ari Emanuel, and Mark Shapiro, just weeks before McMahon's forced return to the board. The financial stakes are highlighted: WWE's $9 billion merger valuation means small percentage shifts could yield hundreds of millions in damages. Brandon Thurston discusses his successful legal challenge to unseal KKR's bidding terms in the lawsuit, with a judge denying KKR's confidentiality request. Janelle Grant's testimony before a Connecticut committee is covered, where she spoke about NDAs and filed a police report over online intimidation, alleging WWE did not respond. The episode shifts to Mark Shapiro's comments at a Morgan Stanley conference, assessing the ESPN-WWE deal and UFC's potential move to TNT. They analyze the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger, its $79 billion debt, and implications for AEW's future. TV ratings are reviewed, including WWE's numbers on ESPN and AEW Collision's performance against a WWE PLE. The hosts conclude with updates on NXT ratings and a post-wrestling historical review.

As heard by us

A Thursday-night wrestling-business desk where media deals, lawsuit updates, and filings share the same agenda.

Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics and John Pollock of Post Wrestling settle back into Thursday-night programming with a wrestling-business agenda built around Paramount taking over Warner Bros.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the wrestling-business hour where lawsuit updates, unredacted filings, and a possible UFC move to TNT all sit on the same Thursday-night desk.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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