The fighting and outcome may be fake, but the action is real, and so is the money. The WWE just body-slammed a massive deal into the turnbuckles by merging with another brand where the fighting is very real, but the spectacle is similar. “WWE and the company that runs Ultimate Fighting Championship will combine to create a $21.4 billion sports entertainment company … The new business, which does not yet have a name, will be lead by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel. Vince McMahon, executive chairman at WWE, will serve in the same role at the new company. Dana White will continue as president of UFC.”

+ There is a bit of a Succession angle to this story. “No longer will the WWE be the family-run business that WWE and its predecessors have been since McMahon’s father and grandfather began promoting professional wrestling in New York in 1953. As such, it marks the end of an era for TV’s dominant pro wrestling franchise.” Endeavor-WWE Acquisition Deal Reached on Night 1 of WrestleMania 39.

+ “Is wrestling real? Is it fake? The answer to both questions is, paradoxically, yes.” In other words, it’s pretty much like American politics (a great newsletter auteur eloquently made this connection back in 2020). The Atlantic: How Wrestling Explains America. “In 1988, then-businessman Donald Trump ‘hosted’ WrestleMania at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. That word is in quotes because, as with so much involving Trump, it was a con—the actual event took place across the street, at the Atlantic City Convention Center. (TV audiences were none the wiser, Riesman notes, and this helped Trump build his brand.) Two years earlier, the lawyer G. Gordon Liddy, of Watergate fame, served as a WrestleMania celebrity guest judge.” The connection between our two American spectacles is only going to increase when Trump Trial 1 kicks off in NYC. (In between rounds, don’t forget to score some merch.) This seems like a good moment to whack my laptop with a folding chair before spinning it over my head and sending it into a dumpster with a flying heel kick.