Pull up a barstool, crack open a cold domestic light beer, and let’s talk about the corporate suits trying to turn our favorite violent soap opera into a tech startup. We have TKO executives throwing around tech terms like they just discovered Google, and WWE broadcasting computer-generated nightmares on national television. Now, even the premier wrestling news sites are joining the madness.
Just look at the front page today, July 4, 2026, where the fine folks at PWInsider decided to publish a guest piece by Kendall Jenkins titled How AI Companions Are Changing the Way We Communicate Online. That is right, a website built on tracking indie bookings and Vince McMahon's travel schedules is now lecturing us about virtual boyfriends. It is the absolute pinnacle of the tech-bro brain rot currently infecting the entire business.
We are not here to talk about lonely internet users chatting with digital girlfriends. We are here to talk about how WWE is trying to use these same silicon shortcuts to run their actual shows. Grab your drinks, because this rabbit hole goes deep, and it gets ugly fast.
The Boardroom Buzzwords Take Over
Shapiro Drops a Bomb
The trouble started in April 2026 during a TKO Group Holdings employee town hall meeting. Mark Shapiro, the president and COO of TKO, stood up and decided to play the role of the smartest guy in the room. He told the entire staff that artificial intelligence was a massive priority for the company, before dropping a line that set the wrestling internet on fire.
“Nick Khan and Triple H are using AI for storylines with the WWE.”
Think about that visual for a second. Picture Paul Levesque sitting in a dark office at Stamford, staring at a flashing cursor instead of drawing up booking charts. He is probably typing prompts to generate a promo where Cody Rhodes mentions his dad and cries, which is a hilarious, terrifying image of corporate creativity.
Naturally, the wrestling media went into a complete meltdown over the quote. Fans envisioned a computer program generating the next heel turn for Roman Reigns. It was absolute chaos.
The CFO Plays Cleanup
People started tracking TKO's hiring practices, pointing out that they hired Cyrus Kowsari as the Senior Director of Creative Strategy. His job is literally to insert this technology into the corporate machine. The panic got so loud that TKO Chief Financial Officer Andrew Schleimer had to play the designated adult.
He quickly walked back the comments, explaining that they are only running tests and pilots. According to Schleimer, the company is using these tools to track consumer behavior and figure out which superstars are popular in which towns. They are not letting a machine book the main event of SummerSlam just yet.
But the damage was already done. The suits showed their hand, revealing they view wrestling as a spreadsheet rather than an art form. When you treat the creative process like a data-entry job, the product suffers.
The NXT Nightmare of Zaria and Sol Ruca
The Snatcher vs. The Machine
If you need proof that this technology is a complete disaster on screen, look no further than the April 28, 2026 episode of WWE NXT. The black-and-gold brand has been the breeding ground for the future of the company, showcasing incredible athletes. Two of the brightest stars on the roster are Zaria and Sol Ruca.
Their feud should be a simple sell based on their physical talent. Sol Ruca is famous for the Sol Snatcher, a corner-out springboard cutter that defies gravity and makes your jaw hit the floor. Zaria is a powerhouse who can tear through opponents like a buzzsaw.
You do not need rocket science to build a package for this match. You just need to show them hitting their moves and looking like superstars. Instead, the NXT production team decided to use generative software to create a hype video.
Tommy Dreamer's Bad Taste
The result was a horrifying vignette where Sol Ruca's face literally broke into digital pieces and dissolved into ash. The textures looked greasy, the lighting was completely unnatural, and the transitions looked like a cheap video editing app from a decade ago. It was the ultimate definition of modern online garbage.
Fans on social media immediately tore the video to shreds. The backlash was swift, loud, and entirely deserved. People wanted to know why a multi-billion dollar entertainment company was using cheap computer shortcuts instead of paying their world-class editing team to do their jobs.
It looked lazy, it looked cheap, and it completely distracted from the actual talent of the performers. Of course, the old guard had to chime in to defend the company. Tommy Dreamer went on Busted Open Radio and claimed he actually enjoyed the video package.
He argued that it gave the whole feud a futuristic, Mad Max-type style. Let’s be real for a second: Tommy Dreamer is a legend, but his taste in digital art is about as sharp as a butter knife. There is nothing Mad Max about an ugly computer render that looks like a glitching video game.
The Three Big Lies of the Corporate Push
The suits want us to believe this technology is going to improve the product. They tell us it makes the writers faster, the videos cooler, and the business smarter. But if you look at the reality of the situation, it is all a giant scam.
- It replaces genuine human editing with cheap, distracting visual filters that look terrible on television.
- It relies on historical data to predict what fans want, which kills the element of surprise that makes wrestling great.
- It treats the audience like data points rather than passionate fans who want to feel real emotion.
Wrestling is a unique art form because it requires a live connection. When Sami Zayn was fighting the Bloodline, the crowd did not pop because of an algorithm. They popped because they spent years watching a human being struggle, fail, and finally succeed.
A computer cannot write that kind of emotional payoff because a computer does not know what it feels like to lose. We see the same issue in the corporate side of the business. WWE has spent decades building the best video package department in the world.
Their editors can take a mediocre match and make it look like a historic war using music, pacing, and crowd shots. Replacing those artists with software is a slap in the face to the people who built the company's aesthetic. Even the data side of the argument is flawed.
If you only book matches based on what the algorithm says is popular in a specific zip code, you will never take risks. You will never debut a weird character who starts slow but gets over through sheer charisma. You will just get a sanitized, boring product designed by a committee of accountants.
The Parasocial Nightmare and the PWInsider Connection
This brings us back to that bizarre PWInsider guest post about virtual companions. Why did Kendall Jenkins write about AI boyfriends on a wrestling site? Maybe it is because the tech companies realize wrestling fans are the perfect target audience.
We are already deeply parasocial creatures who spend hours arguing about fictional characters on the internet. Think about how we interact with the wrestlers we love. We follow their social media accounts, we buy their merchandise, and we react to every detail of their personal lives.
In a way, the modern fan treats their favorite superstar like a digital companion. We want them to perform for us, acknowledge our tweets, and validate our opinions on the product. The danger is that the corporate suits want to capitalize on this dynamic by removing the human element entirely.
They want to sell us a product that requires no human labor, no physical risk, and no actual creativity. But the core of professional wrestling is the physical toll it takes on the performers. When Sol Ruca hits a cutter, her knees are hitting the canvas.
When Zaria takes a bump, her spine is absorbing the impact. You cannot simulate that physical sacrifice with a computer model. The moment you try to replace the blood, sweat, and torn ligaments with digital effects, the illusion dies.
Wrestling fans can spot a fake from a mile away. We accept the scripted nature of the sport because the physical effort is undeniably real. If you take away the reality of the performance, you are just left with a bad cartoon.
It is time for the executives to step away from the keyboard and look at the crowd. The fans are not screaming because of a statistical trend, but because they are watching real human beings do extraordinary things. Let the tech bros keep their digital girlfriends and leave the wrestling ring to the professionals.
