Endeavor Executives Reportedly Anticipated Vince McMahon's Return & Ensuing WWE Sale

It turns out that current TKO President Mark Shapiro had incredible foresight when it came to Vince McMahon's retirement from WWE in July 2022.

Brandon Thurston of Post Wrestling has released a bombshell report that shows a text exchange between Shapiro and current TKO CFO Andrew Schleimer, as well as former Endeavor CFO Jason Lublin, mere hours after McMahon's retirement statement went public.

Sharipo wrote an incredibly accurate prediction that new co-CEO's Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon would only be taking over the company on a temporary basis. And that Vince would ultimately be back in an attempt to facilitate a sale of WWE.

On the day Vince McMahon resigned in 2022, Endeavor/now-TKO President Mark Shapiro privately anticipated he'd be back and possibly sell WWE.

Liberty's Greg Maffei later called the merger “pre-wired.”

In-depth update on the WWE shareholder lawsuit: https://t.co/yOCGLo6VcT
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) December 29, 2025

“Nick [Khan] and Stephanie [McMahon] are going to take over the WWE for the next nine months,” Shapiro wrote in his text obtained by Thurston. “Vince [will] be back with a new board or he will take the company private or he will sell it/coming to us.”

Shapiro later added that both 'the race' and 'the courtship' were on. It's not clear at this time how or why he was so confident that Vince's exit from WWE would be short-lived.

Less than six months later, McMahon did in fact reinstate himself to the WWE Board of Directors via his superior voting power as the controlling shareholder. Three months after that, a deal was struck with Endeavor to merge WWE and UFC together and form a new parent company, TKO.

There is currently a WWE shareholder lawsuit that is playing out in Delaware Chancery Court, in which plaintiffs are alleging that Vince McMahon violated his fiduciary duties during the sale process.

"The lawsuit claims that McMahon’s priority was to secure his future on top of WWE despite the sexual misconduct scandal that led to his 2022 resignation and the payment of millions of dollars in nondisclosure agreements that were not properly recorded on the company’s books," Thurston wrote in his report.

The newly unearthed text messages from Mark Shapiro are among some of the newly disclosed records in that ongoing lawsuit.

"Plaintiffs contend that McMahon and Emanuel had a friendship that assured McMahon would stay with the company post-transaction, whereas other potential suitors would have required him to leave WWE permanently."

In Thurston's extensive report, which we highly suggest you read in its entirety, he reveals communications that show McMahon and Ari Emanuel, then the No. 2 man at Endeavor, arranged an in-person meeting alongside Nick Khan and Stephanie McMahon just two weeks after Vince left the company.

"Notably, the lawsuit doesn’t claim that McMahon wasn’t allowed to speak with potential buyers while he was publicly retired," Thurston wrote in his report.

"Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that due to McMahon’s embattled position amid scandal, his interest in staying in power at WWE, his purported friendship with Emanuel, and his voting control — followed by his return to the board — the sale process was slanted into a foregone conclusion and wasn’t a genuine effort to determine WWE’s full value."

Correspondents between McMahon and Emanuel reportedly continued, off and on, during the months leading up to Vince's return to WWE in January 2023.

The deal between WWE and UFC's parent company raised some eyebrows

Vince McMahon John Laurinaitis — Vince McMahon & John Laurinaitis | WWE.com

A potential sale of WWE did draw interest from other bidders, most notably Liberty Media according to Thurston, but those proposals were not fully developed by the time the deal with Endeavor was announced in April of that year.

The rapid pace in which the merger came together, prompted then Liberty Media President and CEO Greg Maffei to proclaim that it seemed "pre-wired".

When it comes to the motivations of Endeavor, Thurston noted in his report that this particular move was a solution to the company's financial strain at the time.

"[The deal] was not a straightforward purchase of WWE by Endeavor, but a merger that pulled UFC out of Endeavor — along with the associated debt — to combine the leading MMA brand with the leading pro wrestling business. The debt would not disappear, but would no longer sit with Endeavor. It became the responsibility of the newly formed company we now know as TKO."

Plaintiff's in the lawsuit are pointing to this as a possible explanation for why Emanuel was willing to retain McMahon as part of the deal. Vince ultimately resigned from TKO after the Janel Grant sex trafficking lawsuit was filed in January 2024.

Brandon Thursday also uncovered text messages between McMahon and Nick Khan from early 2023, that appear to show how involved in the WWE creative process Vince was at the time.

The exchange shows McMahon inquiring to Paul Levesque and Bruce Prichard about whether Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes were up to speed on "new creative" heading into WrestleMania 39.

Brandon Thurston has provided many more details on this story, and we highly suggest you check out his great work, in addition to our brief recap.

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