In the past week, WWE offered us two distinct visions of its company.
One was a meticulously produced and presented look behind the curtain. The other was the shutting of a door.
On one hand, we have ‘WWE: Unreal’ on Netflix, a series that promised to pull back that famous curtain and show us the creative process behind some of the company’s biggest moments.
It’s slick, it’s compelling, but it’s very much an authorized biography. It shows us exactly what WWE wants us to see.
On the other hand, last Saturday, WWE slammed the door on the press suite for its post-Premium Live Event media conferences, once a staple of the Paul Levesque era.
The curtain has indeed been pulled back, but only to reveal a walled garden.
And after the second night of SummerSlam on Sunday, the reason seems abundantly clear.
As John Cena stood alone in the ring after his main event defeat at the hands of Cody Rhodes, Brock Lesnar’s theme music heralded one of WWE’s favorite tropes: a spectacular return, a “big moment”.
The reasons why this particular moment is seen by many fans as problematic are set out in detail elsewhere on this site by Brandon Thurston. Brock Lesnar is named dozens of times in Janel Grant’s amended complaint against Vince McMahon and WWE, and these are not just footnotes.
Although Lesnar is not named as a defendant in Grant’s complaint, the filing identifies him in connection with some of its most sickening allegations. The suit alleges McMahon used Grant as a “sexual pawn” to entice Lesnar during contract talks in 2021 and 2022, with McMahon ordering her to send the star sexually explicit media.
The lawsuit also alleges that arrangements were made for Lesnar and Grant to meet for sexual encounters at McMahon’s direction, but that the meetings never occurred.
Nonetheless, WWE has welcomed Lesnar back, carefully shielded by a PR strategy that includes the scrapping of outside media access.
Even without Lesnar’s return, the move perhaps shouldn’t be a shock to those who have been paying attention.
Paul Levesque’s tenure at the press conference desk has been marked by an obvious and sometimes prickly discomfort with any question that deviates from the theme of celebrating the night’s successes.
It’s important to remember that Levesque is not merely “head booker”; he is the Chief Content Officer of WWE, a high-ranking executive, and the public face of the company.
His words carry the weight of the brand, and his handling of certain subjects has, at times, been revealing.
Let’s be honest, the vast majority of questions asked at these events were softballs designed to elicit a soundbite about a character’s motivation, a teased future storyline, or a vague promise of a future event in a particular territory.
Yet, on the rare occasion a reporter dared to ask something of substance, the responses were telling.
Cast your mind back to the Royal Rumble press conference in January 2024. In the week the Grant lawsuit first came to light, Levesque was asked about it by Brandon Thurston. His response? He hadn’t read it. He wanted to focus on the “positives” of the company’s deal with Netflix. He had nothing meaningful to say about the gravest scandal to face the company in decades.
Then came Backlash in France. When questioned by Lucas Charpiot about the circumstances surrounding Drew Gulak’s departure from the company, an annoyed Levesque attacked the premise of the question and the source of the story.
Or consider his response to a question about the lack of Black male talent in main event positions. His answer included the old cliché, “I don’t see the color.”
These were not the responses of a leader embracing a new era of openness. They were those of a storyteller frustrated that the narrative was slipping from his control.
In fairness, AEW is not a model of transparency either. Its post-show ‘media scrums’ have often seen Tony Khan sidestep questions by slipping into the role of promoter to plug the next event in full storyline mode.
Notably, when Khan was pressed at the Worlds End presser in December 2023 about whether Chris Jericho had ever faced an internal misconduct investigation, he did not answer the question, saying he couldn’t “speak to internet and unsourced rumours” before redirecting the conversation to AEW’s safety policy.
Meanwhile, Levesque and WWE have made the calculated bet that the roar of the in-arena crowd is more profitable than any outrage on social media, and that as long as the hard questions aren’t asked on their platform, they don’t really exist. They are probably right.
So, as we watch ‘WWE: Unreal’, we should appreciate it for what it is: a well-made television show and an effective piece of corporate promotion. It’s WWE’s story, told its way.
But we should not mistake it for genuine transparency. The real story is that of a company that has decided the best policy is not to answer tough questions, but to take away the microphone from the questioners, at least for now.
The Beast is back, and the walls around him are higher than ever.
