ESPN writer involved in PLE grade flap says WWE blocked him from WrestleMania 42

Long-time combat sports journalist Andreas Hale has covered WWE at various stops along his career, including from his current post at ESPN. When that Disney-owned media brand took over domestic rights to stream WWE’s premium live events last fall in a billion dollar deal, it made perfect sense for Hale to be the person reviewing those events on ESPN’s online outlets.

He gave the show created to kick-off the partnership, Wrestlepalooza, a C grade in his review. That was in line with other mixed to negative reaction to the September PLE, but it reportedly rubbed some at WWE and parent company TKO the wrong way. Multiple outlets reported that ESPN dropped letter grades from post-Crown Jewel reviews because of pressure from WWE.

Today (April 18), Hale posted that WWE has denied his credential to WrestleMania 42 this weekend in Las Vegas and hasn’t told him or his employers — the ones who signed a $1.6 billion deal with TKO for WWE PLE rights — why.

While Hale hasn’t been giving WWE PLEs letter grades, he has been offering them on his UFC reviews. He wrote about their March event on Paramount+ under the headline, “UFC 326 fight grades: The F in BMF stands for fail”, giving it a D- grade while acknowledging that UFC rarely has night that bad, that show from Vegas “set the bar for futility.”

Tough, but if you frequent SBNation’s more UFC-focused sites like MMAFighting and MMAMania, you’ll again see that Hale wasn’t alone in his assessment of UFC 326.

Does any of these merit barring him from their biggest show of the year? That’s something we’ll be discussing in the coming days as WrestleMania 42 rolls on, I’m sure — especially as reactions to and numbers for ‘Mania roll in. Share your reaction to Hale’s post and the seemingly still-rocky WWE/ESPN relationship in the comments below.

Thanks to M.G0MEZ for assistance with this article.