Philadelphia to Host 2018 WWE Royal Rumble
Brace yourself, wrestling fans: the WWE is coming to town next year, and it’s bringing the Royal Rumble with it. The Rumble, which is one of the WWE’s annual “big four” events (along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Survivor Series), will be held January 28, 2018 at the Wells Fargo Center right here in Philadelphia. The Rumble, a pay-per-view television spectacle, is named after the main-card event of the night, in which 30 wrestlers compete to throw each other out of the ring and the last man left standing is declared the victor.
The Royal Rumble will be held in Philadelphia during January of next year.
Philadelphia is no stranger to the Royal Rumble: it hosted the event in 2015. Since then, however, the WWE has changed its strategy surrounding the Rumble and the days surrounding it: it holds other television events in the same city on the days leading up to or just after the big show. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Auxiliary events Raw, Smackdown Live, and NXT — the company’s developmental program that has morphed into its own thriving brand — will also also take place at the Wells Fargo Center Jan. 27-30 next year.”
John Saboor, WWE’s executive vice president of special events, said in a statement yesterday that the WWE enjoys a long and fruitful history with the City of Brotherly Love, and that this relationship made Philly an easy choice to host the Rumble. “Our decision to place next year’s Royal Rumble celebration in Philadelphia is truly another exciting and important step in the continued growth of WWE’s four largest annual events,” he said. He also mentioned that Philadelphia’s passion in pursuing WWE events – the city has consistently put in a bid to host WrestleMania each year – contributed to the decision.
For his part, Wells Fargo Center president John Page said that he was happy to clear the Center’s calendar for the WWE and that the city was “excited” to be playing host. Page also mentioned that the decision was pleasing to Comcast, which is headquartered in Philadelphia and which owns NBC Universal, the home of the WWE.
