King Of The Ring, by Brian Mciver - Daily Record - 16th August 2008
WWE Superstar Shows Our Man Brian Some Of The Moves That Made Him A Wrestling Legend He's A 6ft 5in Former Us Marine Who Is Built Like A Tank And Throws Grown Men Around Like They Are Rag Dolls - That's Why They Call Randy Orton ..
FACING off against a man called Randy who wears spandex trunks for his daily work sounds frightening enough.
But when the self same giant stares you down with the meanest, darkest eyes this side of Jaws, it's either time to call an insurance firm or an underwear shop.
I had just made the mistake of challenging WWE wrestling superstar Randy Orton to show me his scariest moves, and he immediately showed just why he has been voted one of the best bad guys on television.
The Tennessee-born one time US Marine is a former champion of the American ring phenomenon and one of the best known villains of this theatrical sport.
He makes a living combining his huge frame with a steely stare and lots of general bad boy behaviour.
Randy took time off from his training programme to give the Daily Record an insight into his baddie persona, when he visited the UK to promote this weekend's TV SummerSlam wrestling event, as well as their European tour which comes to Scotland this autumn.
Randy, 28, is one of the best loved (and hated) stars of the sport, and has thousands of adoring fans all over the world.
He has been out of wrestling action for the last two months following a broken collarbone, the result of a bout with rival Triple H.
But the wrestler revealed that the physical side of the sport is only half the battle, with showmanship and image just as important as the combat.
That is where the 6ft 5in giant shows the skills that have made him rich and famous.
When you speak to him out of character, Orton, who was born into wrestling royalty as the son of Cowboy Bob Orton, and with both a grandfather and uncle in the sport, is well spoken and friendly.
But as soon as he gets near a ring or training he becomes the guy who is currently up against Simon Cowell for best baddie in the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.
HE said he would show me the secret to his showmanship style. I thought that would be pulling faces or an affected stare but he gets very scary, very fast.
"It's all about being intimidating when you're in the ring, and you can trash talk their appearance, their record or whatever, and stare them out or go right up to them," he said.
"It wasn't my decision at first to be a heel, because at first when the guys got to knowme, I had kind of an arrogant, narcissistic attitude, and I don't deal with authority figures too well, and that translated into ring, so I became a heel.
"I can get 10,000 people to boo me if I drop a guy with a clothes line and drop my knee on the back of his head with a smirk and then it's like, 'aww, boo' and you get with it.
"My goal is to get the best, or worst, reaction from them as I can."
Randy decided to get a reaction from me by challenging me to a test of strength. The test lasted all of five seconds as he was virtually juggling huge weights while I was requiring physiotherapy after trying to lift some tiny barbells and keep up.
We then gathered ourselves for a ring-style face off, and any doubts I may have had about just how intimidating he could be were excreted away, as he eye balled me with a serial killer stare.
I tried to bravado him back, but even though I wasn't about to take him on in a ring bout and I knew for certain there was no violence on the cards whatsoever, but his constant growl made me flinch at first, before I was virtually leaning back at a right angle to get away from him.
Randy got his big break into wrestling after his military career ended badly.
He was dishonourably discharged from the Marines after disobeying orders and started making inroads into the world of wrestling in 1999 courtesy of his dad.
He quickly found a niche at the home of WWE, and after making his name as a baddie, he used his family background (his childhood home was a wrestlers' hang out, with legends like Andre the Giant and wannabe Scot Rowdy Roddy Piper there all the time) and skills to carve out a successful career.
Since hitting the WWE big time in 2002, he has won four major titles and earned a huge fan base.
"I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life, at first I tried the military, that didn't go too well, so I asked my dad if he could call Vince McMahon and get me a job.
"It was really just out of desperation but it turned out I loved it and I was a natural at it, I got on TV a year and a half after I started training, took off from there.
"At first I felt the pressure (of the family name) but very quickly it dissipated because I did well and the stats show I surpassed my father in terms of ring stats and titles, so I was never really in the shadow of it.
"I pretty much learned things on-the-job and through practice and training, I was under the wing of people like Ric Flair and Triple H.
I learned a lot, and moulded my character into what it is now, figuring out what works, what doesn't, and I got a handle on how to make the crowd despise me." WORKING the crowds is one of Randy's favourite parts of the job, and he said he can't wait for the WWE UK tour in November, when he and his fellow grapplers will bring their pizzazz to Glasgow and Aberdeen.
"Whenever we go overseas, there's a lot more excitement, and the crowds aren't used to seeing us live, so they go crazy, which makes it all more exciting. The adrenaline gets pumping because of that energy.
"It's nice to visit all parts of the world and witness different cultures, we've been all over, and being recognised is pretty cool.
"But I would say travelling and being away from loved ones is the hardest part of the job.
"I've got a newborn at home, it's the first time I've been away from her and I miss her, but it's what I do for living."
After his injury, Randy is missing out on wrestling in tomorrow night's payper-view SummerSlam event, although he will be there to cause some trouble, so he is now really looking forward to the UK tour, and coming back to Scotland.
"I've been to Aberdeen and Glasgow before and it was great, I cant wait to come back.
"I don't know about wearing a kilt. I don't need to, I don't necessarily want the fans to like me.
"If anything, I might call it a skirt, and say 'do men wear dresses here' and p*** them off a bit.
"I'll do what I can to be hated."
The WWE Raw events take place in Glasgow on November 14, and Aberdeen on November 15, while SummerSlam is on Sunday, August 17 at 1am, live and exclusive on Sky Box Office.
'Randy makes a living from combining his huge frame with a steely stare and lots of general bad boy behaviour'
'I've got a newborn at home. It's the first time I've been away from her and I miss her badly, but it's what I do for a living'
(Credit: Daily Record)
Media Man Australia Profiles
WWE
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wrestlers 'still shocked' over Benoit murders, by Sean Cusick, ninemsn - 15th August 2008
The world of professional wrestling is "still in shock" over the Chris Benoit murders, according to one of the sport's biggest names.
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star Dave "The Animal" Batista says the wrestling industry is still traumatised by Benoit's double-murder suicide almost 14 months ago.
"Still to this day, I think people are in shock over it and a lot of people are still in denial," the US-based Batista told ninemsn.
"It's just the hardest thing we've ever done … a nightmare come to life."
Batista, 39, spent over five years wrestling with Benoit as two of the WWE's most popular entertainers.
He says the pair were close friends and "had a deep personal trust for each other and … talked about personal issues".
Benoit shocked the world last June when he murdered his wife Nancy and seven-year-old son Daniel in his Georgia home.
The 40-year-old Canadian is believed to have strangled his wife with a cord and used a choke hold to strangle his son before placing Bibles next to their bodies.
He then hanged himself with a weights machine in his basement.
"It's just hard to think of Chris Benoit in that way," Batista said.
"We all loved him so much, and we all respected him so much.
"A lot of us are kind of in denial because we don’t associate the Chris Benoit we knew and loved with the Chris Benoit who did that horrible thing."
Batista was speaking ahead of the WWE SummerSlam event, which is airs on Foxtel on Monday.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Dave "The Animal" Batista
Foxtel
WWE
The world of professional wrestling is "still in shock" over the Chris Benoit murders, according to one of the sport's biggest names.
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) star Dave "The Animal" Batista says the wrestling industry is still traumatised by Benoit's double-murder suicide almost 14 months ago.
"Still to this day, I think people are in shock over it and a lot of people are still in denial," the US-based Batista told ninemsn.
"It's just the hardest thing we've ever done … a nightmare come to life."
Batista, 39, spent over five years wrestling with Benoit as two of the WWE's most popular entertainers.
He says the pair were close friends and "had a deep personal trust for each other and … talked about personal issues".
Benoit shocked the world last June when he murdered his wife Nancy and seven-year-old son Daniel in his Georgia home.
The 40-year-old Canadian is believed to have strangled his wife with a cord and used a choke hold to strangle his son before placing Bibles next to their bodies.
He then hanged himself with a weights machine in his basement.
"It's just hard to think of Chris Benoit in that way," Batista said.
"We all loved him so much, and we all respected him so much.
"A lot of us are kind of in denial because we don’t associate the Chris Benoit we knew and loved with the Chris Benoit who did that horrible thing."
Batista was speaking ahead of the WWE SummerSlam event, which is airs on Foxtel on Monday.
Media Man Australia Profiles
Dave "The Animal" Batista
Foxtel
WWE
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant sowed the seeds of a slam at Shea Stadium, by Elliot Olshansky - New York Daily News - 9th September 2008
Before Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant headlined wrestling's biggest shows of the 80s, they laid the foundation for their most famous moment at Shea Stadium.
The defining moment of the 1980s pro wrestling boom took place outside Detroit, but the seeds were sown at Shea Stadium.
The image is iconic, even among non-fans: Hulk Hogan, at the peak of his popularity - at least until "Hogan Knows Best" hit VH1 - lifts and bodyslams Andre the Giant, thrilling the reported 93,173 fans who filled the Pontiac Silverdome for Wrestlemania III. A short three-count later, the match ends, and Hulk is still the champion of the promotion then known as the World Wrestling Federation.
As Hogan celebrated his win over the mammoth Frenchman, commentators Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura remarked that it was Andre's first loss in 15 years, and the first time he'd ever been slammed. It was a great story, a fitting climax for the largest show in the history of the business. Of course, given the nature of the wrestling business - or, as it's called these days, "sports entertainment" - it's only fitting that the story was a fabrication.
Of course, all discussion of wins and losses in professional wrestling is pointless to begin with, for obvious reasons. However, when it comes to the celebrated bodyslam, before it became "The Bodyslam Heard 'Round the World" in front of 93,000 fans, it was heard - and seen - by some 36,000 at Shea Stadium, 28 years ago on Saturday.
On August 9, 1980, the then-WWF presented its third "Showdown at Shea" event. While World Wrestling Entertainment has routinely drawn more than 50,000 fans for the seven pay-per-view events held at outdoor stadiums, the shows at Shea, like the WWF at the time, operated on a different scale, and being able to attract that many fans to Shea was a major step for the promotion.
"Back then, they didn't have the penetration from TV that they have now," said longtime wrestling writer Bill Apter of 1wrestling.com. "The TV universe was much smaller, so that was equal to a gigantic gate today."
To Keith Elliot Greenberg, a longtime writer for WWE's magazines and a collaborator on the autobiographies of wrestling legends "Classy" Freddie Blassie, Ric Flair, and "Superstar" Billy Graham, that gigantic gate was a major statement for the promotion, and for wrestling as a whole.
"It symbolized that despite the complete exclusion of the mainstream media, professional wrestling could stir hearts of the masses and fill a venue at Shea Stadium," Greenberg said.
After 22,508 showed up in Flushing for the first Showdown at Shea in 1972, and some 32,000 turned out for the second incarnation in 1976, the third Showdown was the biggest yet. A reported 36,295 came out to see Bruno Sammartino battle protégé-turned-rival Larry Zbysko inside a steel cage. Earlier in the evening, however, a young, up-and-coming Hulk Hogan stepped into the ring to face the beloved Andre the Giant.
"At that time, Hulk Hogan was brand new," Greenberg said. "He was young, he was massive, he was golden in color, and he was the future of the industry in more ways than fans realized."
The fans at Shea that night wanted to see the brash newcomer put in his place by the beloved Giant, and they got their wish. Andre pinned Hogan after 7:48 of action, but not before Hogan lifted and slammed his rival.
Shortly after the match, Hogan left the WWF, and when he returned - after a scene in Rocky III and three years in the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association - he began the run that made him a household name, helping to take the WWF from a regional promotion based in the Northeast to a national powerhouse. That run reached its peak in 1987, when he again locked up with Andre.
By this point, Hogan had become the virtuous hero who espoused training, prayer and vitamins, and it hardly made sense to acknowledge his past as a cocky rulebreaker. Besides, the WWF's audience had grown by leaps and bounds in the seven years since Hogan and Andre met in Flushing, and there was no reason for the vast majority of fans to know that the match had ever taken place, or that Hogan had already lifted and slammed the supposedly impossible-to-lift Frenchman.
"There was no reason at that point," Apter said, "because they were recreating their history."
Of course, in the age before YouTube, Wikipedia, and internet message boards, there was really no good way to find out.
"While the Shea Stadium show was a big deal in the New York area, it was little more than a curiosity elsewhere in the country, unless you were a reader of magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated," said Scott Keith, author of four books on pro wrestling, including the forthcoming "Dungeon of Death: Chris Benoit and the Hart Family Curse." "Fans were basically at the mercy of the WWF as far as things like match results and history went. So while they may have mentioned in passing that Hulk lost that match, in the bigger picture they could simply pretend like it didn't happen when it suited their needs to do so later on."
As Hulk and Andre became the focal points of a storyline that would last nearly two years and help launch two new annual pay-per-view events (Survivor Series in 1987 and Summerslam in 1988), their earlier history was swept under the rug, never spoken about on WWF programming.
It wasn't until 2002, when Hogan returned to WWE after an eight-year stint with the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling promotion, that the match resurfaced as an official part of the promotion's history. In the summer of 2002, the promotion released a two-DVD set, Hulk Still Rules, documenting the wrestling icon's career, and among the matches included to accompany the main feature was the "lost" match at Shea Stadium.
Today, of course, WWE is much more open about the nature of the business. Fans are as unlikely to believe in a 15-year unbeaten streak as they are to care, and it's commonly accepted and acknowledged that anyone who is lifted and slammed in the ring is a willing participant in the activity. Meanwhile, Hogan is a reality TV star, Andre Roussimoff has been dead for 15 years, and the stadium where the two of them laid the foundation for a defining moment in their profession is set to be dismantled. However, 28 years after the fact, as New Yorkers recall the historic moments that took place at Shea Stadium, one of those events, often forgotten, was a key moment in the career of a wrestling icon.
As Greenberg said of Hogan, "His slamming of Andre the Giant symbolized the fact that Hulk Hogan could go where others could not."
(Credit: New York Daily News)
Media Man Australia Profiles
New York
Hulk Hogan
Andre the Giant
WWE
Before Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant headlined wrestling's biggest shows of the 80s, they laid the foundation for their most famous moment at Shea Stadium.
The defining moment of the 1980s pro wrestling boom took place outside Detroit, but the seeds were sown at Shea Stadium.
The image is iconic, even among non-fans: Hulk Hogan, at the peak of his popularity - at least until "Hogan Knows Best" hit VH1 - lifts and bodyslams Andre the Giant, thrilling the reported 93,173 fans who filled the Pontiac Silverdome for Wrestlemania III. A short three-count later, the match ends, and Hulk is still the champion of the promotion then known as the World Wrestling Federation.
As Hogan celebrated his win over the mammoth Frenchman, commentators Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura remarked that it was Andre's first loss in 15 years, and the first time he'd ever been slammed. It was a great story, a fitting climax for the largest show in the history of the business. Of course, given the nature of the wrestling business - or, as it's called these days, "sports entertainment" - it's only fitting that the story was a fabrication.
Of course, all discussion of wins and losses in professional wrestling is pointless to begin with, for obvious reasons. However, when it comes to the celebrated bodyslam, before it became "The Bodyslam Heard 'Round the World" in front of 93,000 fans, it was heard - and seen - by some 36,000 at Shea Stadium, 28 years ago on Saturday.
On August 9, 1980, the then-WWF presented its third "Showdown at Shea" event. While World Wrestling Entertainment has routinely drawn more than 50,000 fans for the seven pay-per-view events held at outdoor stadiums, the shows at Shea, like the WWF at the time, operated on a different scale, and being able to attract that many fans to Shea was a major step for the promotion.
"Back then, they didn't have the penetration from TV that they have now," said longtime wrestling writer Bill Apter of 1wrestling.com. "The TV universe was much smaller, so that was equal to a gigantic gate today."
To Keith Elliot Greenberg, a longtime writer for WWE's magazines and a collaborator on the autobiographies of wrestling legends "Classy" Freddie Blassie, Ric Flair, and "Superstar" Billy Graham, that gigantic gate was a major statement for the promotion, and for wrestling as a whole.
"It symbolized that despite the complete exclusion of the mainstream media, professional wrestling could stir hearts of the masses and fill a venue at Shea Stadium," Greenberg said.
After 22,508 showed up in Flushing for the first Showdown at Shea in 1972, and some 32,000 turned out for the second incarnation in 1976, the third Showdown was the biggest yet. A reported 36,295 came out to see Bruno Sammartino battle protégé-turned-rival Larry Zbysko inside a steel cage. Earlier in the evening, however, a young, up-and-coming Hulk Hogan stepped into the ring to face the beloved Andre the Giant.
"At that time, Hulk Hogan was brand new," Greenberg said. "He was young, he was massive, he was golden in color, and he was the future of the industry in more ways than fans realized."
The fans at Shea that night wanted to see the brash newcomer put in his place by the beloved Giant, and they got their wish. Andre pinned Hogan after 7:48 of action, but not before Hogan lifted and slammed his rival.
Shortly after the match, Hogan left the WWF, and when he returned - after a scene in Rocky III and three years in the Minneapolis-based American Wrestling Association - he began the run that made him a household name, helping to take the WWF from a regional promotion based in the Northeast to a national powerhouse. That run reached its peak in 1987, when he again locked up with Andre.
By this point, Hogan had become the virtuous hero who espoused training, prayer and vitamins, and it hardly made sense to acknowledge his past as a cocky rulebreaker. Besides, the WWF's audience had grown by leaps and bounds in the seven years since Hogan and Andre met in Flushing, and there was no reason for the vast majority of fans to know that the match had ever taken place, or that Hogan had already lifted and slammed the supposedly impossible-to-lift Frenchman.
"There was no reason at that point," Apter said, "because they were recreating their history."
Of course, in the age before YouTube, Wikipedia, and internet message boards, there was really no good way to find out.
"While the Shea Stadium show was a big deal in the New York area, it was little more than a curiosity elsewhere in the country, unless you were a reader of magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated," said Scott Keith, author of four books on pro wrestling, including the forthcoming "Dungeon of Death: Chris Benoit and the Hart Family Curse." "Fans were basically at the mercy of the WWF as far as things like match results and history went. So while they may have mentioned in passing that Hulk lost that match, in the bigger picture they could simply pretend like it didn't happen when it suited their needs to do so later on."
As Hulk and Andre became the focal points of a storyline that would last nearly two years and help launch two new annual pay-per-view events (Survivor Series in 1987 and Summerslam in 1988), their earlier history was swept under the rug, never spoken about on WWF programming.
It wasn't until 2002, when Hogan returned to WWE after an eight-year stint with the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling promotion, that the match resurfaced as an official part of the promotion's history. In the summer of 2002, the promotion released a two-DVD set, Hulk Still Rules, documenting the wrestling icon's career, and among the matches included to accompany the main feature was the "lost" match at Shea Stadium.
Today, of course, WWE is much more open about the nature of the business. Fans are as unlikely to believe in a 15-year unbeaten streak as they are to care, and it's commonly accepted and acknowledged that anyone who is lifted and slammed in the ring is a willing participant in the activity. Meanwhile, Hogan is a reality TV star, Andre Roussimoff has been dead for 15 years, and the stadium where the two of them laid the foundation for a defining moment in their profession is set to be dismantled. However, 28 years after the fact, as New Yorkers recall the historic moments that took place at Shea Stadium, one of those events, often forgotten, was a key moment in the career of a wrestling icon.
As Greenberg said of Hogan, "His slamming of Andre the Giant symbolized the fact that Hulk Hogan could go where others could not."
(Credit: New York Daily News)
Media Man Australia Profiles
New York
Hulk Hogan
Andre the Giant
WWE
Saturday, August 09, 2008
WWE Ratings News on Free to Air and Pay TV
WWE Afterburn airing Sunday Afternoon's on Channel 9 was watched by over 214,000 people last week coming in at No.48 of the Top 50 programs. SmackDown & RAW continue to make the Top 50 on Pay TV.
SmackDown averaged 97,000 viewers on Friday August 1st at 3:30pm FOX8, making it the 25th most viewed show during a single screening last week on Pay TV for the second week running.
RAW had an average of 72,000 people tuning in at 3:30 pm on July 30th, making it the 45th most watched show during a single viewing last week.
Media Man Australia Profiles
WWE Afterburn
Network Nine Australia
WWE
WWE Afterburn airing Sunday Afternoon's on Channel 9 was watched by over 214,000 people last week coming in at No.48 of the Top 50 programs. SmackDown & RAW continue to make the Top 50 on Pay TV.
SmackDown averaged 97,000 viewers on Friday August 1st at 3:30pm FOX8, making it the 25th most viewed show during a single screening last week on Pay TV for the second week running.
RAW had an average of 72,000 people tuning in at 3:30 pm on July 30th, making it the 45th most watched show during a single viewing last week.
Media Man Australia Profiles
WWE Afterburn
Network Nine Australia
WWE
Friday, August 08, 2008
WWE Expands Board - 7th August 2008
STAMFORD, Conn., Aug 07, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
WWE today announced it has expanded its Board of Directors to 10 members with the addition of Kevin Dunn, Frank A. Riddick, III and Jeffrey R. Speed. In accordance with his previously announced plans, Robert Bowman has resigned from the Board.
Riddick will now chair the Company's Audit Committee. Other members of the committee will be Speed and current Board members David Kenin and Michael Solomon.
"These three outstanding executives bring extensive operating experience and financial acumen to our expanded Board of Directors," said WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. "With their addition, we enhance our ability to meet the challenges of continued global expansion and to capitalize on the future opportunities for our company and brand."
Dunn has served as WWE's Executive Vice President, Television Production, since July 2003. In his current position running WWE's pivotal television business, he manages WWE's television and production facilities, including a team of approximately 165 people that produce five hours of fresh, prime time television programming each week for U.S. networks and nine hours of original programming for markets in 130 countries, as well as content for DVDs, pay-per-views, and video on demand.
Riddick is a consultant to TowerBrook Capital Partners, L.P. ("TowerBrook"), a New York and London - based private equity firm. Riddick is a director of GrafTech International Ltd. Prior to joining TowerBrook, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Formica Corporation, a manufacturer of surfacing materials used in countertops, cabinets, and flooring from January 2002 to April 2008. He served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Armstrong Holdings, Inc. from 2000 to 2001 and as Chief Financial Officer at Armstrong and its subsidiaries from 1995 to 2000.
Speed has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Six Flags, Inc., the world's largest regional theme park operator, since April 2006. Prior to joining Six Flags, Mr. Speed spent approximately 13 years with The Walt Disney Company, most recently serving from 2003 until 2006 as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Euro Disney SAS, the publicly-traded operator of the Disneyland Resort Paris, which is the number one tourist destination in Europe.
Additional information on World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
WWE can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com. For information on our global activities, go to http://www.wwe.com/worldwide.
Trademarks: All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, copyrights and logos are the exclusive property of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include the conditions of the markets for live events, broadcast television, cable television, pay-per-view, Internet, entertainment, professional sports, and licensed merchandise; acceptance of the Company's brands, media and merchandise within those markets; uncertainties relating to litigation; risks associated with producing live events both domestically and internationally; uncertainties associated with international markets; risks relating to maintaining and renewing key agreements, including television distribution agreements; and other risks and factors set forth from time to time in Company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results could differ materially from those currently expected or anticipated.
SOURCE: World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
Media:
Gary Davis, 203-353-5066
or
Investors:
Michael Weitz, 203-352-8642
Media Man Australia Profiles
WWE
STAMFORD, Conn., Aug 07, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
WWE today announced it has expanded its Board of Directors to 10 members with the addition of Kevin Dunn, Frank A. Riddick, III and Jeffrey R. Speed. In accordance with his previously announced plans, Robert Bowman has resigned from the Board.
Riddick will now chair the Company's Audit Committee. Other members of the committee will be Speed and current Board members David Kenin and Michael Solomon.
"These three outstanding executives bring extensive operating experience and financial acumen to our expanded Board of Directors," said WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. "With their addition, we enhance our ability to meet the challenges of continued global expansion and to capitalize on the future opportunities for our company and brand."
Dunn has served as WWE's Executive Vice President, Television Production, since July 2003. In his current position running WWE's pivotal television business, he manages WWE's television and production facilities, including a team of approximately 165 people that produce five hours of fresh, prime time television programming each week for U.S. networks and nine hours of original programming for markets in 130 countries, as well as content for DVDs, pay-per-views, and video on demand.
Riddick is a consultant to TowerBrook Capital Partners, L.P. ("TowerBrook"), a New York and London - based private equity firm. Riddick is a director of GrafTech International Ltd. Prior to joining TowerBrook, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Formica Corporation, a manufacturer of surfacing materials used in countertops, cabinets, and flooring from January 2002 to April 2008. He served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Armstrong Holdings, Inc. from 2000 to 2001 and as Chief Financial Officer at Armstrong and its subsidiaries from 1995 to 2000.
Speed has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Six Flags, Inc., the world's largest regional theme park operator, since April 2006. Prior to joining Six Flags, Mr. Speed spent approximately 13 years with The Walt Disney Company, most recently serving from 2003 until 2006 as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Euro Disney SAS, the publicly-traded operator of the Disneyland Resort Paris, which is the number one tourist destination in Europe.
Additional information on World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
WWE can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com. For information on our global activities, go to http://www.wwe.com/worldwide.
Trademarks: All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, copyrights and logos are the exclusive property of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include the conditions of the markets for live events, broadcast television, cable television, pay-per-view, Internet, entertainment, professional sports, and licensed merchandise; acceptance of the Company's brands, media and merchandise within those markets; uncertainties relating to litigation; risks associated with producing live events both domestically and internationally; uncertainties associated with international markets; risks relating to maintaining and renewing key agreements, including television distribution agreements; and other risks and factors set forth from time to time in Company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Actual results could differ materially from those currently expected or anticipated.
SOURCE: World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.
Media:
Gary Davis, 203-353-5066
or
Investors:
Michael Weitz, 203-352-8642
Media Man Australia Profiles
WWE
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