Dave Meltzer Says WWE NXT Deal Could See NWA On The CW
The CW will be showing wrestling in 2024 but it remains to be seen if it will be home to only WWE NXT or if there’s still room for Billy Corgan’s NWA.
The NWA was reported to have agreed on a deal with The CW for two shows to be broadcast on the network, including its weekly NWA Powerrr. However, Billy Corgan’s deal was left on life support following a bizarre drug-taking segment on NWA pay-per-view.
Worse was to come for the NWA when it was announced that WWE had signed a deal with The CW to become the exclusive home of NXT in 2024. With many believing that WWE’s deal would scupper any chance for the NWA to appear on The CW, that might not be the case.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that normally WWE would look for exclusivity in regard to a TV deal but the situation surrounding a current lawsuit by MLW could mean a different approach:
I don’t know what this means for the Billy Corgan stuff. The feeling is that may mean the Billy Corgan stuff is dead. I don’t see CW – it’s hard to say they’d want two companies, two different wrestling shows, or wrestling promotions. And I don’t know if WWE got an exclusive, normally WWE would get an exclusive but with that MLW lawsuit, it’s probably not in their best interests.
If Corgan had a deal that’s signed or a deal that was close to signed and WWE got in – these were late negotiations, they were not negotiating for a long period of time, it just popped up somewhat recently. But if they get booted on a deal that was verbally agreed to or whatever it was right now with the MLW suit if [WWE] was involved in that, that would be a tough one.
[…] Everything’s different, it’s new ownership. Old WWE would have insisted on exclusivity, these guys with UFC did not. And these are the people making these choices, especially in this negotiation, this was their negotiation so I think there’s a real good chance they did not insist on exclusivity but we don’t know yet.
Why Is MLW Suing WWE?
MLW had filed an antitrust lawsuit against WWE in January 2022 alleging that the sports entertainment giant had pressured media partners of MLW to abandon their contracts or prospective relationship with the promotion.
MLW amended its lawsuit against WWE in March 2023 and included information regarding the promotion’s recent deal with REELZ. MLW debuted on REELZ in February 2023 but by the end of the month, the network announced a deal with Peacock – the US home of the WWE Network. Due to an exclusivity clause between WWE and Peacock, MLW content is blacked out on the service.
The lawsuit also made mention of the fact that Paul Levesque [Triple H] called Madison Square Garden to get the historic venue to withdraw from holding the joint ROH/NJPW show in 2018.
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