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New filings in the WWE shareholder lawsuit over the TKO merger show plaintiffs asking the court for more time in the phase of the case where each side gathers evidence. The request arrived as attorneys for the shareholders raised new concerns about how key executives communicated during the lead-up to WWE’s 2023 merger with Endeavor’s UFC.
In emails between attorneys filed in new exhibits, the plaintiffs say Vince McMahon, Nick Khan, Paul Levesque, Stephanie McMahon, Brad Blum, and current TKO CEO Ari Emanuel all used the encrypted messaging app Signal during the period they were required to preserve documents as the WWE M&A process was ongoing.
Plaintiffs say each of them turned on Signal’s auto-delete function in at least one chat, and they separately assert that WWE President Khan deleted text messages during the time frame, according to the filings reviewed by Wrestlenomics.
The defendants in the case are Vince McMahon, Khan, Levesque, and former executives George Barrios and Michelle Wilson. Vince McMahon has separate counsel from the rest of the defendants.
The shareholders’ lawyers asked opposing attorneys from Latham & Watkins, who represent the non-Vince defendants, to investigate whether any relevant code-named Signal group chats existed, including one possibly named “Stunner.” They asked them to specifically check any devices belonging to Khan, Levesque, Emanuel, and Blum that have ever had Signal downloaded to them.
The filings don’t explain how the plaintiffs came to suspect that such group chats exist. Many documents have already been turned over and several witnesses have already been deposed, including Stephanie McMahon (on Oct. 24) and Paul Levesque (last Tuesday). The depositions aren’t automatically made public.
Responding to the shareholders’ counsel, the defendants’ attorneys disputed the plaintiffs’ claims about missing messages and their use of Signal. “Your attempt to recast the record on supposed ‘text message and Signal-related deletion issues,’ privilege log disputes, and deposition scheduling is inaccurate and improper,” an attorney for the defendants wrote back.
In the series of emails sent this month and filed as exhibits, counsel for Khan, Levesque, Barrios, and Wilson say they’ve worked in good faith to respond to the plaintiffs’ repeated discovery requests. They note that in October the plaintiffs served “a dozen overbroad interrogatories,” lists of questions they want Khan to answer. The attorneys representing the WWE board members argued that the plaintiffs are now seeking to extend the discovery window simply because they might become dissatisfied with answers from witnesses like Khan, whose depositions haven’t been conducted yet.
Lawyers for the shareholders noted in one of the emails between counsel that, “Stephanie McMahon Levesque also testified at her deposition that she communicated frequently through Signal with Nick Khan — ‘perhaps a couple of times a day’ — on ‘really important’ and ‘pressing’ matters, and that she and [her husband] Paul Levesque regularly used Signal to communicate.”
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with using Signal, it raises questions for the plaintiffs about whether written communications were being properly preserved at a time when executives were required to keep important messages because of potential litigation around the merger. The concern is that some executives may have used Signal’s auto-delete feature during a period when they were supposed to save their communications instead of letting them disappear.
Stephanie McMahon and Khan, notably, served as co-CEOs for the five months between Vince McMahon’s first resignation in July 2022 and his return the following January, soon after which Stephanie resigned.
The plaintiffs’ email to the defendants’ counsel went on to state, “Each of Blum, Emanuel, Khan, McMahon, and McMahon Levesque communicated via Signal with one or more others.”
The shareholder class, which is led by a pension fund for an Ohio labor union, has asked the court to extend several upcoming deadlines and proposed holding a four-day trial in June 2026. The motion itself was filed under seal on Friday, but the proposed order and some supporting exhibits appeared on the public docket on Monday.
The motion came after the plaintiffs’ attorneys tried to resolve the matter directly with the defendants.
“It would be unfortunate for Plaintiffs to have to move to extend the fact discovery cutoff and/or to compel on various issues to preserve our rights,” a lawyer for the shareholders wrote to defense counsel last week, “and we do not think the Court will look kindly on Defendants’ tactics if we are forced to file those motions.”
The plaintiffs say they can’t finish collecting all the relevant evidence under the current schedule because several major depositions are set to happen after the discovery deadline, including upcoming testimony from Khan, TKO President Mark Shapiro, and Emanuel, each of whom are scheduled to be deposed in December.
Barrios and Wilson, who had served as executives and board members before Vince McMahon fired them in 2020, were added back to the board when he returned in January 2023. Levesque and Khan were also board members during the period in which WWE began exploring a merger or sale. The lawsuit alleges that those directors allowed McMahon to control the M&A process to ensure WWE merged with UFC rather than genuinely exploring other bids that might have required McMahon to leave the company. McMahon has denied the allegations in a filed answer. The other defendants’ answer has been filed under seal without a public version.
One name that’s reemerged in the case is Blum, Vince McMahon’s longtime chief of staff at WWE and now, after leaving WWE in 2024, the president of McMahon’s post-WWE venture, 14TH&I. The former WWE chief of staff and chief operating officer was likely deposed in this case on Friday, according to a filing with a Florida court showing his deposition was scheduled for that date. He is also among the executives mentioned in the separate lawsuit filed by former employee Janel Grant, whose allegations of misconduct against McMahon triggered the board investigation that eventually led to McMahon’s resignation.
The back-and-forth over Signal and possible deleted text messages connects to the central claim in the case that McMahon predetermined a merger with Endeavor because of his relationship with Emanuel and his alleged expectation that only Emanuel could assure that McMahon would stay with WWE after closing the deal. The plaintiffs believe that private communications among key executives and directors may reveal how decisions were made and whether the sale process actually served shareholders’ interests or whether McMahon put his personal interests first, with cooperation from the director defendants.
The judge, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster, hasn’t ruled yet on the plaintiffs’ request to extend discovery or any of the disputes raised recently related to Signal or possibly deleted text messages.
Requests for comments for this report sent to the plaintiffs’ attorneys and separately to communications representatives for WWE and TKO were not returned.
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.