CNN Covers Anti-ICE Chants at AEW Shows & Confirms WBD Owns Minority Ownership Stake in AEW

As noted before, the February 4th AEW Dynamite show in Las Vegas, Nevada featured the crowd chanting “Fuck ICE” prior to the start of the AEW World Championship Eliminator match between Brody King and MJF. Following the show, NBC News, TMZ, and other news outlets covered the anti-ICE chants at the show.

Saturday’s AEW Grand Slam Australia 2026 event in Sdyney, Australia featured a similar anti-ICE chant by the crowd prior to the start of King’s match with MJF for the AEW World Championship.

CNN became the latest mainstream media outlet to cover the anti-ICE chants at AEW shows in a recent article released about a new “politically shaded rivalry” between AEW and WWE.

This article included comments from Eero Laine, a professor of theatre at the State University of New York at Buffalo, who studies the history of professional wrestling. Laine stated that what makes the anti-ICE chants notable is that they are not directly tied to what is happening in the ring nor are part of the usual repertoire of wrestling chants during wrestling shows.

But the anti-ICE calls from the crowd at AEW, Laine said, “are interesting in that they support a political stance associated with one of the wrestlers, but they are not necessarily directly related to what’s happening in the ring. And the chant is not part of the repertoire of standard wrestling chants.”

The article also brought up WWE’s past and current ties with politics and the conservative Republican party including their current involvement with the President Donald Trump Administration. Specifically, WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque being the vice chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition and Linda McMahon being the current U.S. Secretary of Education.

In the article, CNN also confirmed in a disclosure that their parent company Warner Bros. Discovery currently owns a minority ownership stake in AEW.

“The embrace of contemporary issues is part of a larger, politically shaded rivalry playing out in the industry, between the 7-year-old AEW and the industry’s ruling juggernaut for generations, WWE (Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent corporation, owns a minority stake in AEW).”

WBD’s ownership stake is currently believed to be under 10% due to they would legally need to disclose it if it was a higher percentage due to their status as a publicly traded company. No other details regarding WBD’s ownership stake nor powers or rights they have with it are currently known.