With at least a year and a half left on their current media rights deal, and the Paramount/Warner Brothers Discovery merger still not yet closed, it's too soon to have any idea on what will happen when AEW negotiates their next media rights deal in the next few years. But according to Dave Meltzer, some within WWE are already suggesting things could go bad for their competitor, with Meltzer reporting on Friday that WWE higher ups were openly telling people they didn't expect Paramount to extend AEW.Despite reporting it, Meltzer remains skeptical about that actually being true, and doubled down on his skepticism during the latest edition of "Wrestling Observer Radio." Not only does Meltzer believe it's too soon to tell, but he noted that WWE had previously claimed things about AEW's media rights that later proved to be untrue."I don't know how great there is, but there's certainly talk among people there [in WWE] that 'They're [AEW] not going to get the deal, and you can't...don't bank on going there because they're...whatever,'" Meltzer said. "Which is the usual bulls**t. It started with week one, literally week one, when the talent in WWE was being told that 'Tony bought all the tickets and distributed them for free.' Week one. You remember those stories, Tony bought all the tickets. So that's how it starts."And then it's that way all the time, that whole thing of 'They're going to die. They're going to die. They're going to die.' It's telling people 'Don't leave. Don't leave because if you're here, we're going to be here forever. And if you leave...' you know again, I get people from there going 'Do you think Tony's going to be around in a couple of years?' And I go 'Yeah.' Do I know that they're going to get renewed? No. Do I think that the company is going to be around? Yeah. Yeah, they're going to be around."If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
