Following the conclusion of SummerSlam on Sunday night, WWE has never felt more like a TKO-owned property. The lasting image from the first two-night edition of the annual summer event may well be Brock Lesnar making a shocking return after the Night 2 main event, attacking John Cena moments after Cena lost the undisputed WWE championship to Cody Rhodes.
Lesnar’s return was shocking not only because the 10-time world champion had been away from WWE — nearly two years to the day — but specifically due to why he had been away.
While not a listed defendant, Lesnar was named in the lawsuit filed by Janel Grant against WWE and former chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, alleging sexual abuse and trafficking while Grant was McMahon’s girlfriend and a WWE employee. McMahon allegedly told Grant that Lesnar would be their next “playmate,” per the lawsuit, which claims Grant was used as a tool in contract negotiations with the wrestler. Lesnar allegedly demanded degrading videos of a sexual nature from Grant, though he twice failed to attend what appeared to be arranged sexual encounters.
When news broke of Lesnar being named in the lawsuit, WWE immediately distanced itself from the former UFC heavyweight champion. On July 15, fellow former UFC heavyweight champ and UFC commentator Daniel Cormier said that Lesnar being named in the lawsuit resulted in him being put on TKO’s “banned list.”
Divorced from the above context, Lesnar’s return Sunday night could be dismissed as WWE yet chasing another “moment,” which its creative team appears to prioritize out of major events.
Cena’s heel turn at Elimination Chamber in February was a “moment,” one that succeeded wildly on social media. However, the subsequent booking around a bad-guy Cena fell flat after the inspiring figure in his turn, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, disappeared from WWE programming. That left Cena floundering until a strange, unprompted babyface turn occurred on “SmackDown,” 48 hours before his match with Rhodes.
The context does matter, though, and WWE added plenty of it in terms of its perception of being a wholly owned TKO product — even beyond Lesnar’s reappearance at the premium live event Sunday.
“WWE: Unreal,” a behind-the-scenes look at the promotion, debuted last Tuesday on Netflix. The reality-adjacent show, billed as WWE’s version of the NFL’s “Hard Knocks” or “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” framed Paul “Triple H” Levesque in the same light as UFC CEO Dana White — a genius mastermind who controls the ins and outs of a massive, complicated organization.
Both WWE and UFC are owned by TKO.
Days after the debut of “Unreal,” Levesque appeared at the White House where he stood alongside President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test. Levesque appeared in video posted to White House social media accounts and gave interviews praising the President while claiming his own world “is not political.”
It was a page directly out of White’s playbook. White has spoken at multiple Republican National Conventions, and UFC rolls out the red carpet for Trump at events with an entrance more elaborate than those granted to the promotion’s fighters. Despite these clear connections, White maintains he is apolitical, saying he simply appreciates that Trump was there for him years ago when UFC was scrambling to find venues that would host its events. Similarly, Levesque pointed out that Trump is a WWE Hall of Famer, thus saying, “my hat’s off to him.”
While UFC has long skewed in a more conservative direction, the professional wrestling landscape has moved toward a far more progressive lean over the last decade. WWE, which bills itself as a family friendly product with a PG rating, largely followed suit by supporting fan demand for an enhanced women’s division and embracing periods such as Pride Month and Black History Month while leaning into the diversity of its roster. For the first time in recent memory, WWE did nothing to acknowledge Black History Month this February.
WWE may want to claim it’s world is not political, but many of its more dedicated fans no longer feel that’s the case.
Hulk Hogan, who appeared at the most recent RNC as a vocal supporter whose legacy was mired by racism, was nearly booed out of the building in his final WWE appearance at the “Monday Night Raw” debut on Netflix on Jan. 6. Hogan was supposed to make numerous subsequent appearances with the company but never returned to television. WWE ran a non-televised roast event during WrestleMania 41 weekend featuring hosted by Tony Hinchcliffe, who appeared at a controversial Trump rally. An attempt to hold a similar event SummerSlam weekend was canceled, reportedly due to low ticket sales.
Fans inside MetLife Stadium loudly booed this weekend when promotional video of Levesque’s White House trip was shown on screens during Night 1 and Night 2 of SummerSlam. WWE lead play-by-play man Michael Cole spoke alongside the video saying WWE was committed to help “make America fit again.”
Of course, WWE has always been political, as all art is to some degree. However, McMahon shifted the entire tone of the promotion at roughly the same point his wife, Linda, ran for a United States Senate seat. The McMahons were significant donors to Trump’s three presidential campaigns, and Linda McMahon now serves the administration as Secretary of Education. Her daughter Stephanie, alongside Levesque, have been present for Linda’s biggest moments in Washington, D.C.
During Levesque’s recent media tour promoting SummerSlam, he addressed the lawsuit against McMahon in which Lesnar is named.
While the scandal McMahon’s retirement and eventual ouster from his positions within WWE and TKO — further leading to a federal investigation that was dropped in February, shortly after Trump retook office — Levesque addressed the lawsuit in a way that, in retrospect, foreshadowed Lesnar’s return.
“All we can do is move forward and allegations are allegations, right?” Levesque said. “It’s a complicated relationship for anybody in life. Nobody is perfect.”
Levesque’s statements echoed the way White has handled accusations of abuse that have been levied against his fighters through the years.
WWE did not respond to a CBS Sports request for comment about Levesque’s appearance at the White House or Lesnar’s return to the company.
WWE avoided addressing Lesnar’s return by cancelling its standard post-show press conferences following SummerSlam, instead moving to a format that saw superstars and Levesque interviewed by on-screen talents rather than third-party media. While correlation may not equal causation in this case — media members who attended prior press conferences were inconsistent in asking tough questions — the timing of the decision was certainly convenient.
On the SummerSlam post-show, Levesque laid Lesnar’s return at the feet of Cena’s retirement run.
“For me, this is sort of John Cena’s wishlist,” Levesque said. “It’s him writing the last chapter of his book, and I think people saw a conversation with us where he said we’d have to screw it up pretty badly to ruin his career. But it’s not about that for me. It’s about John being able to go out the way he wants to go out, to write his chapter. I know what that’s like as a performer. I know what that’s like for everybody to feel that, and I think for John to be able to do what he wants to do.
“One of the very first things I said to him was, ‘Who do you want, and how?’ And we’re working through that.”
By the time Sunday’s show wrapped, Lesnar’s return capped off a two-night event that saw nearly every available inch of real estate covered in sponsor logos — a TKO move that has made WWE broadcasts reflect the look of UFC events. Suddenly, the “TKO-ification” of WWE was completed.
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