Last night, triple h tweeted the above and confirmed that the next NXT Takeover special will in fact be taking place on Saturday night November 19th from the Air Canada Centre the night before the WWE Survivor Series pay per view.
The Survivor series is the second longest running WWE annual pay per view, behind only WrestleMania, and will be the next cross branded WWE pay per view featuring superstars from both Raw and Smackdown Live. Thus, it make sense for WWE to make the most out of one of the “Big Four” pay per views and turn it into a weekend, similar to what they’ve been doing the most recent years with Summerslam. By putting NXT Takeover the night before Survivor Series, and presumably Raw from the same area the night after that, WWE will create a third vacation-destination weekend for its fans. WWE just sold out three nights at the Barclays Center with Takeover, Summerslam and Raw and ran several meet and greet opportunities for its fans throughout the New York City area. The Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Raptors, can actually hold 2,000 more people than the Barclays Center can and so this will become the largest venue that NXT has ever run.
From here, the next logicial step would be for WWE to create that fourth destination weekend around the Royal Rumble, which takes place in Los Angeles, California, and put on the next NXT Takeover special the night before that show as well. It has become a tradition, since 2013, that a member of the NXT roster compete in the Royal Rumble so perhaps they could even hold a battle royal on that takeover show to see who gets that opportunity, I realize we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
This is obviously great news for the NXT brand. While some will say that by pairing the Takeover specials with the big four WWE pay per views and moving them to big venues, it takes a bit away from NXT’s appeal ( with the thought being that you’re not giving NXT as big of a spotlight as their own time of the month for their pay per views and that you’re taking NXT out of the more intimate setting that it was built on), I would tend to disagree. I think it first and foremost shows how far the NXT brand has come in being able to have events take place in such big venues. Also, this is great for the talent involved down in NXT to be able to complete on such a big stage as they prepare for their career in WWE somewhere down the road. It’s also great for WWE because it makes the Survivor Series feel like a bigger deal, in that it will now have a whole weekend centered around it, which is should be due to its rich history.
In the end, it’s great for the fans who will have another place to go see a weekend filled with live events and continue to enjoy more content on the WWE network. How do you feel about this announcement? Let me know over on twitter.com/tommyonthespot. Keep checking out over here on thedailyspotlight.com for all of your wrestling news!
The Daily Spotlight 