This week, WWE and UFC officially merged to form TKO Group Holdings, a new publicly traded company owned by Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor Group. Already this week, word has gotten out that WWE CFO and President Frank Riddick III will be stepping down at the end of the month, and rumors of more departures or turnover have been rumored. Earlier today, PWInsider reported today that current WWE President Nick Khan issued the following internal email, asking employees to stay home and work remotely tomorrow, as “workforce reductions” will take place.
As part of WWE’s transition into the newly formed TKO Group Holdings, we are evaluating our existing operations and systems to identify potential synergies across the business. This effort includes workforce reductions, which will take place tomorrow.
Those whose roles have been impacted will be notified by our Human Resources Team, who will share the details of their severance package. We are asking that everyone work remotely, Friday September 15th, so we can insure all conversations are handled privately and respectfully. We’ll send out a company-wide email once all of tomorrow’s conversations have happened.
Our company is home to the most talented, creative, and hard-working employees in the world. WWE is a special place, which makes moments like this difficult. Just know that we have nothing but gratitude and admiration for everyone we have had the privilege to work alongside.
Thank you for all your contributions and dedication.
Nick Khan
Haus of Wrestling has been able to confirm the authenticity of the email and that layoffs at the Stamford headquarters are expected tomorrow. Unfortunately, while inquiring about whether there would also be talent releases as well, we were told by a WWE source that “major cuts” are expected to the WWE main roster and NXT brand. We were not explicitly told that the cuts would be coming tomorrow but were told they have been planned for some time.
One source we spoke with speculated that Endeavor could lay off a bunch of Stanford employees tomorrow and then wait to release talent at a later date, but that was purely speculation. The reason for pacing them out would be for optics reasons in order to put time between the bad PR that will come with the layoffs and releases. With that said, it is possible that both the employee and talent releases happen tomorrow.