Felix Upton on August 22, 2023
WWE has a huge fan base in India, but those people haven’t seen the company hold a show there in a very long time. That is about to change, and it will be quite an event as well.
WWE Superstar Spectacle will go down on September 8th, at the G. M. C. Balayogi Indoor Stadium, situated in the Hyderabad suburb of Gachibowli, India. John Cena has also been announced for the show, which will do big business for the company, and it’s also amazing PR for Cena as he continues to promote movies in the country.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed why WWE is holding such a special event in India. He also noted that there was once a plan for the company to have a big stable of Indian Superstars, but that didn’t really pan out.
“They’ve been wanting to do this big show, it’s basically a television event in India. The building itself is like 3500-4000 seats for this setup. It’s not about drawing a big crowd, or anything like that, like big money from the fanbase. But it’s a show that their business partners in India are bringing them in, and it’s gonna be a primetime special I think on Sony Six.”
“It was something that was planned months ago and delayed because they were waiting for a merger to go through that has since gone through with Sony Six.”
“It’s gonna be heavily using Sanga and Veer and Jinder Mahal. The idea was always to have a big stable of Indian wrestlers, because India is the market, even though they can’t go there and draw people at shows because culturally people just don’t buy tickets for sports events, other than cricket which is like the big national sport, but it’s very, very difficult to sell tickets.”
“When they went with Jinder and Triple H, they did have 9,000 people, it wasn’t a sellout or anything but people think, ‘Oh, they’re so popular on TV’, which they are, but, they make more money on television in India than anywhere but the United States. They make more than Canada, more than the UK, I think Canada’s #4, UK’s #3, India’s #2 as far as the money that (they) make off of the television.”
“So it’s a very important market for WWE, but not a market that they can run a whole bunch of shows in like they can in Canada or the UK.”
WWE brought a lot of attention to the company when they announced this show in India. After all, those fans haven’t received much live pro wrestling action, except for promotions that are based in the country, like the one the Great Khali runs.
Keep checking back with Ringside News for more on this story, and so many more throughout the entire pro wrestling world. Anything can happen in WWE, and we will be here to be the first to report on any big updates you need to know about.
What’s your take on WWE taking a trip to India for one show? Sound off in the comments to let us know what you’re thinking!
August 22, 2023 7:05 am
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