MLW was on the verge of landing a massive television deal with Paramount that would have put the promotion on live TV every single week. But just when everything appeared ready to move forward, Paramount’s multibillion-dollar UFC agreement came along, and MLW’s plans fell apart.
During the October 31 edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, MLW founder Court Bauer revealed that his company had been deep into negotiations with Paramount in 2025. The deal was supposed to give Major League Wrestling a weekly live television show beginning that fall, and Bauer said the company was already preparing to expand its operations to make it happen. The talks began before Paramount’s acquisition by Skydance was finalized, and according to Bauer, MLW was the wrestling company involved in those negotiations.
“And I’ll tell you a little story. You reported this and you guys will get the exclusive. The company they were talking with last year at Paramount prior to the Skydance acquisition was MLW. And the deal was going to be on the other side of the Skydance acquisition. It was being kind of going through the government to get cleared and get blessed. And we were told, you’re on standby, this deal is going to go. But we just got to wait.”
And this wasn’t just a situation where MLW had a few meetings and hoped something would come together. Bauer explained that negotiations started around April 2025 during the company’s trip to Los Angeles, and things moved quickly enough that MLW was preparing to bring in additional staff and significantly increase production.
“So those talks started right around the time of our LA show. We actually met with them when we were out there in, was like April-ish of 2025. Moved fast and we were just, we had deal pretty much laid out. We were just waiting on standby through June, July, and we had our people ready to go out there and make this thing happen.”
The plan was ambitious. MLW wouldn’t simply be producing another taped wrestling series. The company was preparing to deliver live programming every week, something that would’ve required a much larger operation than what it had at the time.
“We were looking to start in the fall of ’25, which was pretty exciting, and to staff up, scale up, because it was going to be live weekly. And so it was pretty ambitious thing. And we were, we’re here for it, we’ll figure it out.”
But then the corporate situation at Paramount started changing, and that’s where things went wrong. Bauer explained that one of the executives involved in the negotiations learned he wouldn’t be staying with the company following the Skydance merger. Another important figure was Jesse Siskel, who had been helping guide MLW through the process.
“And then one of our guys got a golden parachute. He was told he’s not going to be continuing on with the deal post-merger, like days before the deal was closed. Then on the other side of it, our other guy, Jesse Siskel, who just left Skydance for RedBird Capital this week, was one of the top guys, one of the founding guys that Ellison commented on this week that helped launch Skydance way back 15, whatever years ago. He left for RedBird Capital. He was one of the key guys that was shepherding us on his end.”
Then came the announcement that changed everything. Paramount struck a UFC media rights agreement worth more than $7 billion, and Bauer said the news caught his team completely off guard. In fact, when MLW reached out to Siskel about the UFC deal, Bauer said they were told the agreement had been negotiated at such a high level that people involved in other television discussions weren’t even aware of it.
“And one morning we woke up to a Variety press release that said, UFC deal, you know, we’re talking north of 7 billion. And we’re like, yo, Jesse, what’s going on? He’s like, no one was aware of this deal. It happened at a very high level. And that deal happened and, you know, strategies, I guess you could say, shifted.”
Unfortunately for MLW, that change in strategy meant its proposed television agreement no longer had the same momentum. Within weeks, the negotiations had stalled, and the deal Bauer had spent months working toward was effectively dead.
“And so our deal within weeks just kind of lost and puttered. You know, you never had the contract signed, so I’m not going to — it’s just another day in the business.”
Bauer made it clear that MLW had never actually signed a contract with Paramount, so there wasn’t a completed agreement for the network to cancel. Still, he believes the promotion was extremely close to securing the deal before everything changed.
“You know, we were at that one yard line, but like every company has those. We’re at the one yard line. So it is what it is, but it just tells you how fast things change.”
The revelation offers a pretty interesting look at how close MLW came to landing a weekly live television platform with one of the biggest media companies in the country. Instead, Paramount’s ownership transition and UFC agreement changed the situation before MLW could get anything signed. MLW has since moved forward with its television distribution through Tubi and its partnership with Live Nation’s Veeps for pay-per-view events. But Bauer’s comments reveal that the company’s television future nearly looked very different in 2025.
For MLW, this was a major opportunity that disappeared right before the finish line. The promotion had spent months negotiating, was preparing to hire staff, and had plans to launch live weekly programming before Paramount’s priorities shifted. And while Bauer seems to have accepted it as another part of doing business in television, losing a deal that close to completion is a tough break for any wrestling company.
Do you think MLW would’ve been able to establish itself as a bigger competitor with a weekly live show on Paramount, or was the UFC agreement always going to take priority? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
