WWE News: WWE has huge plans for future Big 4 PPVs
What's the story?
At the Royal Rumble this past year, the WWE ran a Royal Rumble Fan Axxess event during the PPV weekend, providing fans with action the entire weekend.
Mike Johnson mentioned on PW Insider Elite audio that he thinks WWE wants to be 'in a very good position when holding their big shows'.
He said that they want everyone 'coming to them in order to house the bigger events rather than hunting down the bigger venues to house their more important PPV events'. Ringsidenews.com carried the transcript.
In case you missed it . . .
WWE has traditionally made WrestleMania an all-weekend spectacle. They have the WrestleMania card itself, the Hall of Fame Ceremony and events during WrestleMania Fan Axxess.
This was the first time they did the same thing for the Royal Rumble PPV. There are usually NXT Takeover events on the night prior to the bigger PPVs but this year saw an Axxess event added that included the Worlds Collide Tournament.
The heart of the matter
Mike Johnson laid out the reasoning behind WWE's plans for WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam and Survivor Series on PW Insider Elite audio.
'The goal here is to not have the shows in stadiums although WWE would love to make that sort of money. The goal is to take all of these milestone events: SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and lift them up to a point where markets are willing to bid to host them so WWE isn’t going to book a building and pay for a building. They are getting a city or a state to come and say, ‘We’d like the Royal Rumble here and this is what we can do to partner with you.'
Since the WWE is sports entertainment, Vince McMahon wants his huge events to be on par with events like the Super Bowl and all the hoopla that event brings to a host city.
“It’s one of the reasons why they added Axxess to Royal Rumble and SummerSlam. They want there to be a situation where they bring an entire scenario and environment to a market. They get paid to have it, they run their show, and they basically bring the circus to town.”
WWE had NXT Takeover: Phoenix, the Worlds Collide Tournament and the Royal Rumble all during the Royal Rumble weekend.
They also featured a 6-man tag match with the top superstars in NXT (Johnny Gargano, Tomasso Ciampa, Adam Cole, Aleister Black, Ricochet, Velveteen Dream) as Halftime Heat during the Super Bowl. They are ramping up the live product to improve their negotiating power in the future.
What's next?
While WWE has had the Axxess event at the last several WrestleMania shows, it hasn't been an event that has been featured on the WWE Network like Worlds Collide was. You always want to be in the best position when negotiating, and making things so valuable that the bidders come to you is a smart move on WWE's behalf.
Whether or not they can make the weekends as star-studded and can't miss is as they want is another whole question unto itself.