With Vince McMahon down for the count, what’s next for the WWE?

Vince McMahon Jr. is no longer managing World Wrestling Entertainment after a lawsuit alleged sexual assault. What's next for the WWE?

World Wrestling Entertainment is making big moves to grow its audience, including shifting its flagship weekly live program “Raw” to Netflix next year. But the professional wrestling giant is navigating these changes with the notable absence of its founder, Vince McMahon Jr.

McMahon, 78, resigned as executive chairman of the board of TKO Group, WWE's parent company, after a former employee filed a lawsuit accusing him and former wrestler-turned-executive John Laurinaitis of sex abuse and trafficking. The allegations, which McMahon has denied and Laurinaitis not responded to, overshadowed the company’s otherwise momentous week, starting with the $5 billion Netflix deal announcement and ending with a record-setting crowd at the WWE’s “Royal Rumble” event.

McMahon’s departure places the wrestling business in uncharted waters: For the first time in four decades, none of the four McMahons — Vince; his wife, Linda; and their children, Stephanie and Shane — are at the helm of the company.

While the leadership change poses a challenge and once again focuses attention on sexism within the WWE, which the organization has tried to combat, some professional wrestling insiders and academics who study the industry see this moment as an opportunity for the company. With new executives in charge and the move to Netflix, the WWE could test more mature themes and reach new international audiences — becoming an even larger cultural juggernaut than it already is.

“This will be the first time we might actually see a wrestling that is progressive — not just in theory, but actually in practice,” said DeWitt King, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Irvine, who has studied and written about professional wrestling culture. “It won’t be perfect, it’s not going to happen as quickly as people might like, but there’s possibility for change. People have to realize that wrestling was always on a different timeline than other sports.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/vince-mcmahon-wwe-nexflix-rcna136654

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