WWE Hall of Famer JBL recently appeared on an episode of the “Something To Wrestle With” podcast, where he discussed various topics. One of the key points he addressed was his opinion on WWE potentially hosting two WrestleMania events in different locations, such as the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, during the same weekend.
JBL said, “Yeah, I agree with you. And I thought all along when they announced Saudi Arabia that they could possibly have two types of WrestleMania events; I didn’t think maybe back-to-back nights. I think that works. But I think you may call it something different. You have a big show in the United States, a big show in Saudi or whatever it is. Because the American audience and people who travel to America, which includes the Europeans that might not travel to Saudi Arabia, it’s a long way… they’re used to coming to the United States would want to come here for that. I think it makes a lot of sense.”
On the financial logic:
“And if you’re running at two different nights and you’re not using any talent between the two, you don’t have to fly them back and forth. I mean, obviously you’re going to have guys like Triple H and Bruce and Nick Khan and these guys. They’re probably gonna be on a charter flight and fly all night to get to the other the other event, the second night to run it. But I think it makes a lot of sense. You know, it’s not going to be dependent on being in say the UK, if talent is not interchangeable. So you can run something. I mean, you can run Mumbai, you can run Sydney, you can run Tokyo. You can run so many different places. You can run somewhere down in Rio, somewhere down in South America. You can make it a really cool event. Make the fanfest wherever the WrestleMania is. You have two different FanFests, two different everything. And now it’s not a matter of, you’re splitting the revenue because you’re in two different places. You’re potentially doubling the revenue because you’re in two different places.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
