Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery cleared its final major legal hurdle on Monday after settling with California and other states that had sued to block the deal.
On the post-Raw edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez discussed Paramount+’s earlier negotiations with a wrestling company, which stalled after Paramount secured the UFC deal.
Meltzer said: “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. And they did not have a written deal. They were confident in a deal. 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. One of them was still there.”
“But the company was confident that they would get on Paramount+ because, at the time, there was no wrestling on Paramount+. And as it came down to the wire, they had nothing signed or anything like that, and then the UFC deal came in. And once the UFC deal came in, all of a sudden everything got cold with them completely.”
Meltzer also addressed the potential impact of Paramount’s Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition on AEW, noting that CEO David Ellison and AEW President Tony Khan know each other through the NFL. Khan has expressed optimism about AEW programming reaching more homes via Paramount+.
Meltzer continued: “David Ellison and Tony Khan know each other from the NFL. 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.”
“He has not talked of the potential of CBS, but other people in the business have talked about the potential of CBS, for a special or something, a one-time deal like UFC gets, 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.”
