This month, WWE unveiled a groundbreaking partnership with ESPN, which will relocate significant annual events to a fresh platform starting from now. Under this agreement, marquee WWE live events such as the Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and WrestleMania will stream on ESPN’s upcoming direct-to-consumer service. Contrary to the initial announcement, the partnership is no longer set to begin in 2026. Instead, WWE and ESPN have revealed an early start, with the new era commencing at a yet-unrevealed premium live event taking place well ahead of schedule.
The start date for our new partnership has been moved up from 2026 to September of this year. To kick off this fresh chapter, WWE will debut a new premium live event – Wrestlepalooza – on September 20th at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Previously, WWE’s Royal Rumble was held at this venue, and Wrestlepalooza marks the second event as part of our partnership with Indiana, which will also bring a SummerSlam and WrestleMania to the state in the future.
As the event is happening in September, WWE has planned to involve John Cena as well, making it a part of his announced farewell tour for this year. Fans who wish to be a part of Wrestlepalooza can gain presale access starting August 21st at 10 AM ET. Tickets will be available for purchase on August 22nd at the same time. The event will be broadcast live via ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service on September 20th, beginning at 7 PM ET.
The updated release date implies that ESPN will air WrestleMania 42 earlier than anticipated. Instead of waiting for WrestleMania 43, WrestleMania 42 will be streamed on the new service. Additionally, fans can expect to watch the remaining events of this year on the service, such as Crown Jewel (October 11) and Survivor Series (November 29).
At the upcoming event, it’s expected that not only John Cena will be present, but also some other WWE stars like Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, among others, might join. Potential attendees could include Rhea Ripley, Stephanie Vaquer, Tiffany Stratton, Alexa Bliss, Charlotte Flair, AJ Styles, Judgement Day, Chelsea Green, Penta, Jade Cargill, MFTs, and Roman Reigns. However, the final list of participants remains to be confirmed.
On September 20th, WWE and ESPN are joining forces for an unmissable event to launch our new partnership, according to WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. With the greatest WWE stars and the leading brand in sports media, are you prepared?
Beginning on the 21st of August, Thursday, the updated ESPN App will debut the all-new ESPN DTC service. For further details, feel free to follow this link.
https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/tonights-wwe-smackdown-5-hits-1-miss-august-15-2025/embed/#
Read More
- Minecraft lets you get the Lava Chicken song in-game — but it’s absurdly rare
- Gold Rate Forecast
- PS5’s ChinaJoy Booth Needs to Be Seen to Be Believed
- Lewis Capaldi Details “Mental Episode” That Led to Him “Convulsing”
- Wrestler Marcus “Buff” Bagwell Undergoes Leg Amputation
- Cyberpunk 2077’s Patch 2.3 is Here and It’s Another Excellent Overhaul
- Elden Ring Nightreign’s Patch 1.02 update next week is adding a feature we’ve all been waiting for since launch — and another I’ve been begging for, too
- Microsoft is on track to become the second $4 trillion company by market cap, following NVIDIA — and mass layoffs
- Rob Schneider’s Happy Gilmore 2 Role Is Much Different Than We Thought It’d Be
- AI-powered malware eludes Microsoft Defender’s security checks 8% of the time — with just 3 months of training and “reinforcement learning” for around $1,600
2025-08-21 01:44