– TKO Executives Earn Over $130 Million in 2025 as WWE Wrestlers Face Pay Cut Requests.
TKO Group Holdings, parent of WWE and UFC, reported executive pay topping $130 million for 2025, led by CEO Ari Emanuel’s $67.4 million package—up 272 percent from 2024—fueled by stock awards and strong results like $4.735 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, reports from PWInsider and Fightful indicate TKO asked several WWE talents for pay cuts of up to 50 percent after WrestleMania, with one major performer agreeing and others like Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods parting ways over similar issues.
– WWE Offers Xavier Woods Gaming Deal After New Day Exit.
WWE is trying to keep Xavier Woods on board with a specialized deal for video game consulting and content creation, similar to Tyler Breeze’s arrangement since 2021, where he advises on WWE 2K titles like the upcoming WWE 2K26 and appears on UpUpDownDown. Woods and Kingston, who together won 11 tag titles and carried WWE’s tag division for years, left the company around May 2 after declining pay cut requests from TKO Group Holdings despite their 2025 multi-year contracts.