As previously reported, a class-action lawsuit was filed in January against WWE, accusing the company of deceptive marketing regarding the move of their Premium Live Events (PLEs) to ESPN. The lawsuit claims that WWE's statements suggesting that "subscribers" would receive PLEs at no extra charge implied that all ESPN subscribers would have access to this deal. However, access is only granted to ESPN Unlimited subscribers, who must pay an additional fee.
According to Brandon Thurston of POST Wrestling and WrestleNomics, the plaintiffs have requested that the discovery process not be paused. They argue that WWE cannot be trusted not to destroy evidence, citing the company president Nick Khan’s sanctions in the WWE shareholder lawsuit related to the TKO merger as support for their claim.
Both Khan and former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon were sanctioned in the other lawsuit, with the judge ruling that they "acted recklessly" by using the Signal app and changing their settings to have messages automatically delete after a period of time. The judge determined that McMahon and Khan had destroyed evidence by doing so.
WWE has requested that the court put discovery on hold in the ESPN PLE lawsuit, as they are seeking to compel arbitration based on the arbitration clause included in the ESPN streaming user agreement.
Plaintiffs in class action lawsuit over WWE's move of PLEs to ESPN streaming point to the separate merger lawsuit for why discovery should not be stayed.
They argue WWE can't be trusted to preserve evidence, pointing to recent ruling against Nick Khan for destroying evidence. pic.twitter.com/9s3mRnVNXA— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) June 1, 2026
