WWE fans are not having a great time with the pro wrestling company under the umbrella of TKO from both a creative and business standpoint.
The build to WrestleMania 42 was overshadowed by the conviction amongst wrestling fans that TKO circumvented WWE writers by inserting Pat McAfee into the main event storyline between Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton. The reaction to that decision was so universally negative that it was reportedly McAfee himself that pulled the plug on the story because of angst from both fans and wrestlers alike.
WWE fans have grown increasingly upset with the actual wrestling and stories taking a backseat to TKO’s bottom line. Celebrity appearances around WrestleMania went above and beyond past years and the commercial overload has gone out of control. Even crypto billionaires are strangely sitting at the announce table in the name of money.
The latest cause of consternation has been the annual cuts to the WWE talent roster that typically occur after WrestleMania season. This year brought an additional surprise when longtime stars Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods mutually parted ways with WWE after a historic run as The New Day, one of the company’s most successful tag teams in its history.
Reports have emerged that Woods and Kingston balked at taking a paycut and that other stars have been asked to do the same.
If it’s true that TKO is indeed asking stars to take paycuts while also shredding salaries, it’s fair for WWE fans to ask where the money is going. The answer appears to be straight into the checking accounts of its highest executives: TKO CEO Ari Emanuel, TKO president Mark Shaprio, and WWE president Nick Khan.
According to reporting from Brandon Thurston via SEC filings from the company, the salaries of all three men have exploded in the last year to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
The SEC filings detail the compensation structure for each of the executives. Emanuel’s massive haul comes mostly from stock awards. He made $43,982,679 in 2025 and over $40 million again in 2023 but just $2.5 million in 2024. His salary is only listed at $3 million. Yet he’s also received bonuses ranging from $4.2 million to a flat $24 million in 2023. In 2025, Emanuel’s bonus came in at 11,880,000. He also collected $8.12 million in “Non-Equity Incentive Plan Compensation” in each of the last two years.
Shapiro’s salary was bumped up to $4 million in 2024 after being just over $750k in 2023. His bonus increased to $12.5 million this year while he received almost $26 million in stock awards. CFO Andrew Schleimer and Chief Administrative Officer Seth Krauss saw similar gains.
The employment agreements stated in the filings show Emanuel’s “target bonus” of $7 million and Shapiro’s at $6 million. Beyond performance metrics, TKO granted Emanuel an “additional discretionary bonus in the amount of $11,880,000” due to the company’s strong performance and the fact that the stock is up 86% since its inception. Shapiro’s discretionary bonus was $5 million.
Khan’s 2025 bonus was $10,750,000, the only person on the TKO board of directors to receive one. His salary is $2 million and he had $11.5 million in stock awards. Khan’s bonus was based on WWE EBITDA at $7 million and a discretionary bonus from Emanuel of $3.75 million for “the successful launch of our boxing-related businesses.”
This is all public data. Forget how fans are going to feel about executives raking in millions of bonuses while their favorite wrestlers are hitting the curb under the guise of budget cuts or ticket prices go through the roof. That’s probably bad enough for WWE’s relationship with their fanbase who are already rankled by what they are seeing with the product under the TKO umbrella. How are the wrestlers themselves supposed to feel when the top three executives at the company are collecting almost $20 million in purely discretionary bonuses?
Executives getting insanely rich while the rest of their company and its consumers has to make do with less is a familiar tale in modern American business. The only question is how far TKO executives will push to widen the chasm in the years to come.
About Matt Yoder