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5 things to know about the biggest WWE show to hit Vancouver since 1998’s Rock Bottom: In Your House
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Published Aug 06, 2024 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 6 minute read
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Cody Rhodes celebrates with Paul Levesque (Triple H), after winning the Undisputed WWE universal championship match during WrestleMania 40 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, on Sunday, April 7, 2024. Photo by Monica Herndon /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP
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The WWE is bringing one of its signature events to Vancouver. Are you ready?
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Those three little words are a catchphrase of Paul Levesque, who routinely belted them out to fans over a ring microphone when he wrestled for nearly three decades as Triple H and continues to do the same when he’s speaking to the crowds in his role as the chief content officer for the Stamford, Conn., based company.
It was Levesque who announced on social media last week that Vancouver’s Rogers Arena will host Survivor Series: WarGames on Nov. 30. This is the biggest WWE show in Vancouver since Rock Bottom: In Your House, which took place at the downtown Vancouver rink then known as General Motors Place on Dec. 13, 1998.
Smackdown, which is WWE’s weekly Friday show, was at Rogers on Jan. 5, 2024.
Here are five things to know to help get you prepared for the upcoming visit from Levesque and his band of grapplers:
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1. Vancouver is getting one of the WWE’s majors
WrestleMania, which takes place every April, is the WWE’s Super Bowl. Storylines for the year are booked around culminating there.
Survivor Series: WarGames is one of the company’s four other majors, along with the Royal Rumble (January), Money in the Bank (July) and Summer Slam (August).
WrestleMania, Royal Rumble and Summer Slam are generally at stadiums. This past Summer Slam took place at Cleveland Browns Stadium and had an announced attendance of 57,791.
Money in the Bank and Survivor Series are usually at arenas. Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena hosted Money in the Bank last month, and drew an announced crowd of 19,858. The WWE didn’t release exact numbers but it called the Toronto event the highest-grossing WWE arena event in Canada in the company’s history.
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The last three Survivor Series were at Brooklyn’s Barclay Center (announced attendance: 15,120), Boston’s TD Garden (15,609) and Allstate Arena (17,138), which is in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont.
For years, showcase cards like a WrestleMania or a Survivor Series were known as pay-per-views (PPV). The WWE has recently taken to calling them premium live events (PLE). It’s certainly a friendlier title. It’s true, too, that more of that viewing audience are watching the events via subscriptions to the WWE Network the past few years and not purchasing them as one offs.
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There are other PLEs. Crown Jewel, for instance, goes Nov. 2 from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The WWE also has its weekly TV programming, led by Raw on Mondays and Smackdown on Fridays.
2. Could the Vancouver stop be expanded?
The WWE has taken to using a PLE as an anchor for a three- or four-day stay in a city. For instance, the Money in the Bank stop in Toronto also included a Smackdown show on the Friday and an NXT Heatwave on the Sunday. NXT is the WWE’s developmental brand, a farm team for Raw and Smackdown where most wrestlers start off.
There’s been no announcement of any added WWE events in Vancouver as of yet, but there’s not a Smackdown for that week listed on the schedule on the company’s website. There is a Raw slated for Dec. 2 in Everett.
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3. An edgier WWE expected with move to Netflix
Starting in 2025, WWE is moving Raw from traditional TV to streaming service Netflix as part of a 10-year deal worth $5 billion. There’s a school of thought that the WWE product could get edgier and more adult-oriented with the switch
Levesque was on The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN last month and talked about how, “Netflix is a completely different animal.”
“It’s a streaming service. How are commercials gonna work? How are breaks gonna work? What’s the length of time? What are the restrictions? What are not restrictions?” he said.
He added that with the WWE’s current deal with Fox, for instance, that if the crowd chants “holy s— or something much worse, they just take the audio. Sometimes they take the audio and the picture and it’s just a black screen.”
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4. Montreal Screwjob part of Survivor Series history
The Undertaker (1990) and The Rock (1996) both debuted at Survivor Series. The Shield (2012) — the faction featuring Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose — did the same.
The most memorable moment in Survivor Series history, though, has to be Shawn Michaels defeating Bret Hart for the then WWF championship title at the Molson Centre in 1997 in what’s become known in wrestling circles as the Montreal Screwjob.
Hart was leaving the company for the rival WCW. The WWE — which hadn’t yet changed its name over a dispute with the World Wildlife Fund — didn’t want him departing as champion, but Hart was adamant that he didn’t want to drop the title to Michael.
The pair had real-life animosity. Michaels went as far as suggesting on TV that Hart was having an extramarital affair with manager Sunny.
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According to Hart, the plan for the Montreal match had been for it to end in a double disqualification, with allies from both sides storming the ring and a large brawl ensuing. Hart would remain champion as a result, and he would either lose or forfeit the belt in the following days, since he still had time left on his contract.
Vince McMahon, who was heading up the WWE then, didn’t trust Hart and teamed up with Michaels to change the Montreal finish without telling Hart. Nearly 20 minutes into the match, Michaels put Hart into Hart’s own signature sharpshooter submission hold, and McMahon had referee Earl Hebner call for the bell, as if Hart had submitted.
There’s footage of Hart looking dumbfounded immediately afterwards, and of him spitting on McMahon, who was ring side. There’s also footage of a woozy McMahon walking through the corridors by the dressing rooms after getting punched in the head by Hart in a post-match meeting.
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Hart and the WWE mended fences. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2006. He and Michaels reconciled in the ring on the Jan. 4, 2010, episode of Raw.
Cody Rhodes celebrates after winning the Undisputed WWE universal championship match during WrestleMania 40 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, on Sunday, April 7, 2024. Photo by Monica Herndon /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP
5. Dusty Rhodes invented WarGames
WarGames sees teams of wrestlers squaring off in a steel cage match featuring two rings placed side-by-side. It was created by the late Dusty Rhodes when he was with the NWA, and the match debuted at the Great American Bash in 1987. Rhodes was one of wrestling’s most charismatic performers ever, but he was also regarded as one of the great minds in the business and he became a mentor to much of the current generation when the WWE brought him in to coach at NXT.
He died in 2015. He was 69.
The WWE added the WarGame matches to the Survivor Series card two years ago. Cody Rhodes — Dusty’s 39-year-old son — is the current WWE undisputed champion and he was part of the team that won the WarGames’ main event last year.
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@SteveEwen
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