WWE News: Royal Rumble returns to Philadelphia in 2018
What’s the story?
Philly.com reported that the Royal Rumble will be coming back to Philadelphia in 2018. Not only will the Royal Rumble be held at Philadelphia, but NXT Takeover, RAW, and SmackDown Live will be held there as well.
All four events will be held at the Wells Fargo Center. The schedule of the weekend is as follows:
January 27th – NXT Takeover: Philadelphia
January 28th – Royal Rumble
January 29th – RAW
January 30th – SmackDown Live
In case you didn’t know...
Royal Rumble was last at Philadelphia in 2015. The event was notorious for the crowd’s rejection of the Royal Rumble match, and the rejection of Roman Reigns. who had won the Royal Rumble match.
Philadelphia is known to be one of the “smart cities” of wrestling and has an extremely vocal audience. That one night, the audience expressed their displeasure and anger, with chants such as “we want refunds”, among others. Below is a clip showcasing the vocal Philly crowd:
The heart of the matter
WWE now have a different approach with the “Big Four” Pay-Per-Views. Cities now have to bid to get the PPVs, as they are now all big weekend extravaganzas. While the bidding process was normally always held for Wrestlemania, it works on the same principle for the other 3 PPVs(Royal Rumble, Summerslam, and Survivor Series).
John Saboor, WWE’s executive Vice President said that WWE will also be involved in charity activities, among others, during the Royal Rumble weekend. Saboor also praised WWE’s relationship with Philly, the city of Philly and the fans.
Cities are now trying much harder to bid to become hosts to big-4 PPVs because it attracts fans from all across the United States and the world. This leads to great economic benefit for the host cities.
What’s next?
The city of Philadelphia will have to prepare itself for an epic weekend next year. The Wells Fargo Center got 17,000+ people for the Royal Rumble in 2015, and it can likely get far more now that it is the centre of attraction for a Big-4 PPV weekend.
Sportskeeda’s take
Philly is an excellent choice as a host city for a Big-4 PPV weekend. It is well known that the crowd will be more vocal than ever, so the atmosphere will help boost all 4 events being held over the weekend. Philly is also long overdue for a Wrestlemania, but it will have to wait till 2019 to host one if it can successfully make a bid.