Nick Khan addresses Vince McMahon allegations, future WrestleMania changes

For the first time, WWE CEO Nick Khan addressed the recent lawsuit and allegations against Vince McMahon in addition to dropping several interesting quotes about the future of WrestleMania and WWE business in general.

On The Town podcast, Khan said this year's WrestleMania in Philadelphia is the last one that he inherited from the previous regime and process, and a deal that was in place for four years.

In talking about the timing of WWE's Peacock deal coming up in March 2026 a month before WrestleMania, Khan said they "like the timing of that" and intimated future WrestleManias may be "a little later in April which we're talking about now."

Here are some other threads from the conversation:

Vince McMahon & Netflix

Khan said Netflix did not tell TKO leadership to get Vince McMahon to resign before they announced their mega-deal for both Raw domestically and the entire package of content internationally.

Asked if the allegations from the Janel Grant lawsuit would have killed off the Netflix deal, Khan said, "I don't know about killed, but it certainly wouldn't have helped the deal."

Khan also addressed the allegations publicly for the first time, saying they are "obviously horrific and serious and we take them and interpret them the same way any other reasonable person or organization would interpret them. You saw the quick resignation.”

Khan reiterated what others have answered when asked about McMahon's daily involvement in TKO/WWE business: "zero, zero, zero."

Khan was not asked about his name being revealed as one of the "corporate officers" named in the Grant lawsuit.

Other Netflix notes

Khan said the initial feedback from Netflix before they met was that they weren't interested in getting involved in production (trucks, etc) for live sports which interested WWE because they have what Khan called a turnkey operation.

He said once they began talking, it was a "quick process" and that the reported internal disagreement on bringing WWE on within the Netflix co-CEOs never made it down to them.

Khan credited a Netflix executive he and others had met with years ago with some sage advice: get your international rights lined up first in order to negotiate a big, big deal.

He said having Netflix as their international partner will make it easier for them to get into countries worldwide without having to negotiate individual deals.

The Rock returning

Asked about The Rock/Dwayne Johnson's return to WWE and his TKO Board seat, Khan said the conversation began within TKO leadership after they officially went public, saying having his input on TKO business was "something we were desirous of."

They had wanted to bring Johnson back into the fold but Johnson was hesitant as he "needed to figure out the why." Khan said the TKO board is very growth-minded and the time was finally right.

Khan said Johnson is going to film his A24 movie on former MMA fighter Mark Kerr a week or two after WrestleMania and then is moving into work on the live action Moana film for Disney.

The future

Asked about future growth opportunities, Khan said, as he has in the past, international events are a priority as well as maximizing their "treasure trove of IP" using horror movies on the backgrounds of The Undertaker and Bray Wyatt as possible examples.

He said they want to continue to maximize revenue for live events without pricing a family out of coming and looking at creating "new product" they could also go out and sell which he said they are in the middle of doing.