WWE Has Reportedly Canceled an Upcoming 2023 Pay-Per-View

WWE’s Day 1 pay-per-view has reportedly been scrapped, according to a new report from Wrestlenomics‘ Brandon Thurston. The show debuted on New Year’s Day in Atlanta this past January with (now WWE Co-CEO) Nick Khan as one the strongest supporters of the concept of running a major event on New Year’s Day. The show sold 13,657 tickets for Atlanta’s State Farm Arena with Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar advertised as the show’s headliner. However, Reigns had to be pulled from the show due to a positive COVID-19 test and Lesnar was moved over to the WWE Championship match. “The Beast” won the five-way bout, pinning then-champion Big E in controversial fashion. 

“The event originally scheduled for January 1, 2023, at State Farm Arena in Atlanta isn’t being rescheduled or rebranded,” the report read. WWE.com still has the event listed and offers fans the chance to apply for a ticket presale. The only wrestler originally announced for the show was Lesnar, who just made his return to Raw this past week to set up a match with Bobby Lashley at Crown Jewel.

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What is WWE’s Pay-Per-View Schedule for 2023?

With Day 1 getting the boot, WWE doesn’t have a pay-per-view scheduled between Survivor Series WarGames on Nov. 26 at Boston’s TD Garden and the 2023 Royal Rumble at the Alamodome in San Antonio. The only other show officially confirmed for 2023 as of this writing is WrestleMania 39 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. TLC, which had been the December pay-per-view for the past few years, was scrapped when the Day 1 idea was introduced.

“We’re looking for any sports date, on the sports calendar, where a sporting event doesn’t exist. And I’ll give you an example of that. So, this coming New Year’s Eve, is a Friday night. Atlanta expects 300,000 to 400,000 people to go to Atlanta for New Years,” Khan said in an interview with Ariel Helwani last year. “And by the way, the two college football playoff games are also on that Friday, December 31st New Year’s Eve. My belief is that people who are going to Atlanta, they don’t wake up the Saturday morning after a long night out for New Years, and say ‘Okay, let’s go home.’ They want to do something on Saturday night. There was a moment in time where all the big college football games were on New Year’s Day. That’s changed. They’re not all on New Year’s Day, as we know. The Saturday night, where the Rose Bowl is happening that night, but it’s not in one of the two college football games. So, we saw it as an open night. And our Atlanta folks, our partners at State Farm Arena, are excited for the event. We’re excited for the event. And we’re always going to look at that calendar to see what might work, [SummerSlam] being an example of that as well.”