TKO just said WWE is using AI for stories

追加: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]So, is WWE using chat GPT to book their [ __ ] That might be the case if you take some comments from TKO executive Mark Shapiro at face value. So, Post Wrestling got their hands on some audio from a TKO town hall, which I think is like, you know, the employees gather around probably their computers. I would assume this is digital at this point, but I don't know. Um, and uh, and sort of Nick Khan and Mark Shapiro, maybe Ari Emanuel in there uh, somewhere sort of talked about the state of things in general. And there was a lot to sort of take away from this, including WWE's WWE'se's use of AI in their storytelling, which a while back they hired a new employee in their creative uh, department who was supposed to be like their AI guy. And we talked about that back then and what exactly that stuff would mean if it was being blown out of proportion. Would we even know?

[00:01:03]Are we gonna, you know, go to the Unreal show and just see them using Chat GPT for or Claude or whatever for, you know, all their, oh, how do I book Oba Femi versus Brock Lesnar? What is this match going to look like, etc., etc. And so, um, there are a couple things to take a look at here. uh first and foremost obviously that uh Triple H the game is ressigned with the company. Now I talked about this on the Going In Raw podcast uh yesterday on Monday. Uh but it's kind of interesting to get the actual quotes here. Uh Nick Khan said this. A number of us uh let me get to There we go. A number of us uh Mark Shapiro, Andrew Schlimer, others were able to get Paul Le to extend with us in a multi-year deal. He says, "We're excited about that. He's the head of creative amongst other things and he's been doing a great job for and with us." So then Nick Khan went on to defend recent WWE creative and their business decisions against what he referred to as a vocal minority.

[00:02:05]That's just like I guess people who talk about wrestling on the internet. He said this uh to me if you're if you make businesses decisions based on online sentiment just know that you're going to be making said decisions on a minority percentage of voices a vocal minority.

[00:02:24]Allow me to give you an example. And he started reading online criticism of years past. He said uh he says uh Khan read what he said was a comment about Roman Reigns from six years earlier. I can't remember the last time the WWE universe hated a wrestler this much. He will never work. In that person's defense, Roman Reigns for a very long time was not [ __ ] working. I don't think anybody would think that Roman Reigns during that period of time before when he was the big dog and they were doing dog food angles. I don't think anybody thought that was working, including Roman [ __ ] Reigns. Sorry, not trying to be JD here, but it was Roman Reigns who came back to the table in 2020 and said, "Hey, this isn't working. Let's go ahead and change things. I'm going to go ahead and do this bloodline [ __ ] now." And then they were able to, you know, turn him into the tribal chief. So, back then when somebody said, "Uh, he will never work," he wasn't working, which is why they changed the character Nick Khan. He said, uh, the WWE president went on to recount the negative fan reactions to Reigns after his Royal Rumble 2015 win.

[00:03:38]When Roman Reigns won the Rumble in 2015, fans went to Twitter with a hashtag cancel WWE Network. It trended for two days. Uh, Post Wrestling here notes that Vince McMahon used the same vocal minority phrase at the time when he downplayed the reaction of that year's Rumble event. Uh, Khan read what he said was a tweet. Why does WWE insult fans like this with a bum like Roman Reigns? Now, keep in mind that was in 2015. We all know what happened in 2017 to 2019 when their attendance, this ad is annoying me, when their attendance and ratings absolutely cratered. Let's not act like they were selling out arenas back in 2019 because we all remember the pictures back then of the attendance of Monday Night Raws and oh my god, it was ugly back then. It says here he read another response related to Bad Bunny. I'm losing my mind. Why is Bad Bunny in the WWE? Bad Bunny single-handedly ruined the Royal Rumble.

[00:04:34]Uh Nick Khan continued on The Rock's return to WWE. The people don't want the people's champion. The Rock came back one too many times and now people are sick of him. So yeah, there's always going to be that sort of contrarian opinion out there in the world of wrestling or any fandom. And I think that Bad Bunny thing is sort of like that. The Rock coming back, which I think was a pretty wild success. Yeah, some people were sort of tired of The Rock and everything, but his feud with Cody Rhodess in advance of Wrestlemania 40, I think, was pretty wellreceived.

[00:05:02]The Roman Reigns thing is completely different because that was the overwhelming fan sentiment. And they were right because they changed that down the line. By the time we got to Backlash Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny was wildly popular with the WWE crowd. I don't think there was that many people who were like, "Oh man, this guy sucks."

[00:05:21]I think they saw what he did at Backlash and were like, "Holy [ __ ] this guy really bought in." I think the same could be said about Pat McAfee until they wrote him in a way that was such a turnoff to the fan base that on mass people just sort of hated it. And I think that there's a difference between cherry-picking unpopular opinions and acknowledging that there was an overwhelming fan sentiment with, for example, the Roman Reigns thing or the Pat McAfee thing. But here's the thing that I think a lot of people are going to be talking about. TKO chief financial officer Andrew Schlimer spoke at the town hall about the company's use of AI.

[00:05:56]He noted that they've only run tests and pilots and are still in the early stages. He cited the use of AI for data and analytics in WWE and UFC consumers as well as minor uses to enhance uh broadcast, which makes total sense. I think that's going to be kind of the bulk of where AI is used in general.

[00:06:15]Just analyzing [ __ ] putting reports together, taking a lot of data, and then putting it in digestible [ __ ] for people to read and understand and everything.

[00:06:24]And that kind of makes sense. It feels like it's the best use of it. But then TKO president CEO Mark Shapiro called the company's embrace of AI a major priority, emphasizing how AI could help employees become more efficient and productive. He noted how the UFC uses AI for fighter rankings and explained WWE'se's use of AI. This is where it gets interesting. Nick Khan and Triple H are using AI for storylines with the WWE. What?

[00:06:51]What? What the Oh, does he elaborate here at all? He does. He says, "What's resonating? What superstars are resonating? In what pockets of the country are they resonating?" That helps us with obviously our content, our editorial, our creative, our mapping, our touring, and of course maximizing revenue and getting our product out to the fans most in need of it. Okay, so let's just pause there because I've never seen a situation where context was so [ __ ] important than here because he says explicitly, Nick Khan and Triple H are using AI for storylines with the WWE. That sentence alone makes it sound like they're sitting there on Claude.

[00:07:39]All right, let's put in this prompt here. I want you to book out from Backlash to SummerSlam Chad GPT.

[00:07:46]But the context, the follow through here is really kind of what matters. He says, "What's resonating? What superstars are resonating? In what pockets of the country are they resonating?" That to me sounds more like they are taking the data, whatever metrics they use to determine what is getting over and what is not getting over and they're using that raw data, pumping that into JAT GBT or whatever AI model they're using and then using that to say, hey, what's working and what isn't working? what writing that we're coming up with as human beings in that unreal room where you've got Bruce Pritchard and uh I don't know like Rob Fee and and uh whatever their other [ __ ] names are no longer Road Dog, not Road Dog anymore. The other people there, Triple H's chewing on his ice. Uh what was that one guy's name? I forget. Anyways, those guys, Kaskki, that's the name I was thinking of. They're coming up with the [ __ ] and then they're like putting it out there and then they're using AI to analyze the data on the feedback that's coming in.

[00:08:58]That is a wild difference from just what you can take away from this first sentence, which is uh Nick Con and Triple H are using AI for storylines with the WWE. Those are very very two those are very different things right there. Um, but of course online you see the discussion that's going on where people are like, "Oh my god, they're using chat GPT." Which [ __ ] I don't know, maybe they are, but I don't think this sent this statement right here uh because of the context and how he actually elaborates how it's being used. I feel like that's really important and doesn't necessarily indicate that they're using uh like some sort of writing model to actually write their stories. Let's be honest, their stories are pretty simple.

[00:09:54]It's not I mean Roman Reigns versus Jacob Fatu. Yeah, kind of a no-brainer.

[00:10:00]Like, okay, cool. Uh Jacob Fatu wants what Roman Reigns has. I don't you don't really need chat GPT. It's not like chat GPT is coming up with some sort of and maybe I mean I mean it seems like that is the kind of thing that ChatGpt could come up with. But it's also sort of just what WWE has always been doing. They keep things pretty simple. Maybe honestly they should use Chat GPT. I don't know. I don't use I use Claude uh from time to time just to sort of like you know I don't know what's the last thing I use Oh, you know what I use? You know what I use Claude for? I had to change out the uh fill valve in my toilet. Me and Lacy did. I got to give credit to the wife because we're definitely a two heads couple. I'm like, man, we got to change out this toilet thing, but I I'm going to need your help and she's awesome. Uh, and so, but you know, we were asking Claude, uh, how do we do this? What would we do first? And then it was very helpful. So, you know, I'm guilty of it. It's there. It's a tool. I use it. You know, it is what it is. Not for any of the artwork stuff. I don't do that for the artwork. Anything that's going to steal art from anybody, I don't. So, anyways, thought that was a fun little article to talk about. uh you know the whole idea of AI and uh in WWE.

[00:11:05]I mean maybe we're getting to the point one day where it's going to be Triple H and five robots. That's could be, you know, just Triple H and five robots just hanging out, you know. All right, who read the storyline you got?

[00:11:18]Anyways, uh yeah, let me know what you guys think in the comments. Till next time, we'll see you guys around.