Nick Khan On Why The Rock Decided To Return After TKO Merger

The Rock made his return to WWE after the company’s merger with the UFC into TKO, and Nick Khan recently reflected on the Great One’s return. Khan spoke with Matthew Belloni on The Town and talked about why now made sense for the Rock to return. You can see highlights below (h/t to Fightful):

On why it made sense for Rock to return after the merger: “It’s something that…the first bell-ringing day for TKO was September 12th. The conversation that Ari [Ari Emanuel], Mark [Mark Shapiro], Andrew [Andrew Schleimer], myself, others was ‘Dwayne Johnson would be really interesting for the board.’ Ari, Dwayne, and others, Brad Slater, who is an agent there, Ari and Brad have been across Dwayne’s business for a long period of time. The idea of Dwayne and having his input on TKO, which is part of WWE, was something we were desirous of. In having an on-going dialogue with Dwayne in the past two-plus years about, ‘when are you going to come back?’ It finally made sense to him. ‘The why,’ he would always say. ‘I need to figure out the Why.'”

On Rock’s position on the TKO board: “The interesting part for him is he’s developed all these other businesses. Now he sits on the board of a publicly traded company that has an incredibly strong valuation and that’s great for him and great for us that we can have him back on camera and in the ring. I think when it was just WWE, the board operated in a different way. I think because TKO is growth-minded—that’s not to say WWE wasn’t—we wanted to be the best sports entertainment/wrestling company in the world, but with MMA in mind and what could be out there and with all of the great success the UFC had. Our fans love him. I think he loves our fans. Wrestling is in his blood.”