TKO President Mark Shapiro pushed back on fan and investor criticism of WWE's recent WrestleMania ticket performance and creative direction during the company's first-quarter 2026 earnings call on Wednesday. ⠀ Shapiro called WWE WrestleMania 42 "a highly successful and profitable event," with more than 106,000 fans across two nights in Las Vegas and financial incentive package economics "meaningfully ahead of last year." ⠀ "We are not concerned about the ticket performance whatsoever, as it was unrealistic to expect year two growth in Las Vegas," Shapiro said. "WrestleMania 42 was still one of the highest gates in WWE history, and easily outperformed anywhere else we could have staged it." ⠀ On the creative criticism, Shapiro said, "There will always be periodic fan dissatisfaction around creative execution, commercial load and celebrity usage. We listen to all the feedback. We do not turn a deaf ear. But these are not new criticisms." ⠀ Asked about WWE's commercial integration push, S...