WWE plans on going overseas more often in 2023. (Credit: Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)
WWE’s new pay-per-view schedule for 2023 will kick off with an extended gap between next month’s Survivor Series and January’s Royal Rumble.
According to a report from Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, WWE has canceled the Day 1 event that was originally planned for January 1, 2023, and it’s also noted that “the event is not expected to be re-branded and WWE currently does not have a pay-per-view listed for between Survivor Series on November 26 and Royal Rumble on January 28.”
The Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez adds (h/t WrestlingNews.co) that “there will likely be more international shows and likely less gimmick shows. If that is the case, then we will see less shows such as Extreme Rules or Hell in a Cell.”
Translation: WWE is completing transforming its pay-per-view—or “Premium Live Event”—schedule next. And man oh man, is this the right move.
When WWE Network moved to Peacock in April 2021, it completely transformed the company’s pay-per-view model. For the vast majority of its existence, WWE needed to utilize its weekly TV programs Raw and SmackDown to build toward—and sell—its pay-per-views, whether on WWE Network or traditional PPV. That hasn’t been the case for the past year and a half, however, and in the Vince McMahon era, it largely led to less effort into building truly memorable PPV shows.
A common criticism has been that WWE, knowing it is getting $1 billion for its deal with Peacock regardless of the quality of its PPVs, has failed to attempt to create exciting PPV cards draped in drama. Overall, the quality of wrestling on WWE’s PPV events has been very good-to-great during the span, but the lead-up? Eh, not quite.
There is hope, however, that WWE can change that by downsizing its PPV schedule and making the shows that do remain on the schedule, well, mean more.
In theory, that means that all of WWE’s major live events will feel actually feel like one. Perhaps that trend truly started at last month’s Clash at the Castle show in Cardiff, Wales, a blockbuster show that featured marquee matches like Sheamus vs. Gunther and Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre and was a big success for WWE. Cardiff reportedly paid for the event, and it drew more than 62,000 fans, demonstrating that there is a huge market for WrestleMania-caliber international shows.
It comes as no surprise then that WWE is looking to revitalize its pay-per-view lineup with more of this type of overseas events, longer gaps between shows and cards that fans have been accustomed to seeing at traditional “Big Four” shows like SummerSlam or Royal Rumble. That philosophy is not all that different from what AEW has done, which is booking four main pay-per-views a year and then putting more of an emphasis on also hosting significant matches on its flagship show Dynamite.
While WWE likely won’t scale back its pay-per-view schedule that much, one substantial change that should be coming is a reduction of gimmick-based events, which have also been referred to as “B pay-per-views.” That’s exactly what they have been, too, subpar shows with less impact on WWE’s short and long-term futures and supposed selling points that typically rely heavily on gimmick matches, such as Hell in a Cell, Extreme Rules or Money in the Bank.
Most of WWE’s gimmick matches—and the PPVs that bear their names—have become incredibly watered down, but that’s a problem that can easily be fixed by simply reducing them or scrapping them altogether. And replacing them with international or big market non-gimmick shows, especially ones with WrestleMania caliber cards?
Quite frankly, it doesn’t get much better than that for WWE fans.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakeoestriecher/2022/10/17/wwe-reportedly-revamping-pay-per-view-schedule-in-2023/