World Wrestling Entertainment is in negotiations to move its event scheduled for Monday night out of Denver to Colorado Springs, since Game 4 of the Western Conference finals will be played at the Pepsi Center in Denver on the same night, the Sporting News reported Tueday, citing an unnamed WWE source.

WWE chairman Vince McMahon, the promoter who helped transform professional wrestling into prime-time television entertainment, fired the first salvo Monday. In interviews with ESPN, he loudly called out Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke and challenged him to a steel-cage match. (Is there any other way to resolve a grudge?)

“Quite frankly, it’s my view that Stan Kroenke should be arrested, should be arrested for impersonating a good businessman, because he’s not a good businessman,” McMahon said on ESPN. “A good businessman doesn’t book a World Wrestling Federation live televised event on Monday night realizing that his team in all likelihood would not make the playoffs.”

WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman said the company reserved the Pepsi Center on Aug. 15 and had already sold more than 10,000 tickets for its the Monday Night Raw event. He said the organization expects a sellout, with tickets ranging from $20 to $70.

But the Nuggets are planning to play Game 4 of the NBA’s Western Conference finals against the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday at the Pepsi Center, the team’s home floor.

McMahon was not available Tuesday to comment, a spokesman said. On Monday, he told The Associated Press he couldn’t tolerate the team “just simply throwing us out on our ear.”

A telephone message left for a Nuggets spokesman Tuesday wasn’t immediately returned.

Paul Andrews, executive vice president of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, issued a statement Monday night a bit more understated than McMahon. “We are working with the WWE to resolve the situation amicably,” he said.

The NBA, which sets the playoff schedule, is leaving it to the Nuggets and the WWE to work out the dispute.

The conflict provides a welcome boost of publicity as the Stamford-based producer of live television wrestling matches tries to fill arenas and sell pay-per-view events amid the weak economy, branches into making movies, and deals with the fallout from a substance abuse and drug testing policy that has resulted in more than 30 suspensions since it began in 2006.

“Vince McMahon is one of the greatest promoters of all time,” said Alan Gould, senior media analyst with Natixis Bleichroeder Inc in New York. “Any publicity for wrestling is good publicity. It’s almost free marketing for wrestling and the sport.”

WWE is promoting the arena dispute as the “Denver Debacle” on its Web site, which it said got 18 million U.S. unique visitors last month, more than than CBS.com, ABC.com, NBC.com, NFL.com or NBA.com.

Jeffrey Thomison, an analyst with Hilliard Lyons in Louisville, Ky., who has been covering the entertainment industry for two decades, said he’s never seen a similar conflict.

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“I don’t think he’s putting on an act here,” Thomison said of McMahon. “He genuinely is upset.”

Monday Night Raw draws almost 6 million viewers weekly, making it one of the top rated programs on cable television, Thomison said.

“The conflict has to be resolved very soon,” Thomison said. “Monday Night Raw is a very valuable asset to the company.”

The WWE said its crews will be in Denver on Monday night, even if it means putting on a show in a parking lot.

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