By: Brandon Thurston & John Pollock
ESPN put a stop to letter grades in its editorial reviews of WWE premium live events after WWE’s objections, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Letter grades rating a pro wrestling show may seem inconsequential. Whether a content provider, though, like WWE, can influence the editorial practices of a major broadcast partner, like ESPN, is a more significant issue.
WWE’s involvement in the removal of the letter grades was first reported by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter last week, citing, “someone on the WWE side… had gotten [the use of letter grades] killed.”
An ESPN spokesperson declined to provide comments for this report. However, one source with knowledge of ESPN’s approach maintained that the decision to discontinue letter grades was ESPN’s alone and that WWE did not request the change. When pressed to explain the reasoning for the removal of grades and whether WWE took issue with the reviews, the source declined to respond further.
WWE did not return inquiries from POST, including a request to respond to whether WWE expressed discomfort with any aspect of the WWE PLE reviews that included letter grades on ESPN.com.
The reviews were written by ESPN combat sports reporter Andreas Hale, covering the same premium live events whose broadcast rights ESPN recently acquired in a five-year, $1.6 billion media deal, bringing WWE’s biggest events to streaming platform ESPN Unlimited. The first PLE as part of that deal, Wrestlepalooza on September 20, received a “C” grade in Hale’s review, which drew significant attention from fans and media.
Hale went on to review the following month’s PLE, Crown Jewel in October, giving it an overall “B” grade. Since then, Hale has published post-event reviews of WWE PLEs — but without letter grades applied to the event overall or to the matches individually, as he had before.
It’s worth noting that Hale’s reviews of UFC events also use letter grades, and have continued to, as recently as for this past weekend’s UFC 326 event. His UFC reviews have consistently used letter grades, including while ESPN held UFC broadcast rights and well before August 2025, when it was announced UFC would leave ESPN in favor of Paramount.
Hale did not provide a comment when contacted by POST Wrestling.
ESPN’s decision contrasts with promises made by executives at the beginning of its new broadcast relationship with WWE. On a media call on September 17, just before the $325 million per year deal went into effect, ESPN executives were asked if ESPN’s reporters would still have full independence in how they cover WWE. Senior Vice President of ESPN+ John Lasker was clear.
“I think the answer to that is an emphatic ‘yes.’”
The other executive on the call, then-Vice President of Programming & Acquisitions Matt Kenny (who moved to CBS Sports in October), agreed. “Unequivocal, ‘yes.’ That’s separation of church and state.”
In their roles, Lasker and Kenny were not necessarily overseeing ESPN’s journalistic work, however. POST Wrestling contacted ESPN’s editorial leadership for comment but they did not provide statements.
Hale authored a piece with original comments from Seth Rollins, which ran on September 18, two days before Wrestlepalooza: the event Hale gave a mixed review. Since then, ESPN’s digital reporters, who previously had frequent access to WWE talent, haven’t had a new story with original comments from WWE talent. An ESPN spokesperson did not respond to a question about whether ESPN reporters on the editorial side have recently had difficulty getting access to WWE talent. The source with knowledge of ESPN’s approach contended there have been no issues with access, pointing to WWE talent appearing on ESPN’s televised broadcasts. However, the source did not provide — and we could not find any — example of recent access grant to ESPN’s digital editorial staff for original reporting or interviews since September.
Hale’s two-letter-grade reviews were in line with the consensus of fan opinion for the same events, at least where that sentiment is measurable on websites that gather crowdsourced ratings for WWE PLEs.
Wrestlepalooza, which Hale graded a “C”, currently has an average rating of 2.4 out of 5, based on ratings from about 1,400 users, on the Dropkickd app.
On Cagematch.net, which uses a 10-point scale, Wrestlepalooza is currently rated 5.31, an average of ratings from 293 users.
Crown Jewel, which Hale graded a “B”, has a 4.0 out of 5 on Dropkickd (from about 1,300 users) and an 8.21 out of 10 on Cagematch.net (from 340 users).
WWE’s influence over ESPN’s coverage of its PLEs follows the company’s move this past summer to discontinue its post-PLE press conferences, ending a multi-year practice that gave media direct access to talent and rare access to WWE Chief Content Officer Paul Levesque.
Ties between WWE and ESPN run deeper than their relatively new media deal. WWE President Nick Khan spent years as a sports media agent at CAA representing many ESPN on-air personalities, including Stephen A. Smith and Mike Greenberg. TKO President Mark Shapiro was previously Executive Vice President of Programming & Production at ESPN until 2005.