Familiar WWE Premium Live Event Returning This September

WWE's premium live event calendar has five staples (WWE Royal Rumble, WWE WrestleMania, WWE Money in the Bank, WWE SummerSlam, WWE Survivor Series) but tends to have a rotating cast to round out the leftover months. Sandwiched between WWE Royal Rumble and WWE WrestleMania has ranged from WWE Elimination Chamber to WWE Fastlane. The direct follow-up to the Showcase of the Immortals was once WWE Extreme Rules but nowadays it's WWE Backlash. These sporadic schedule shifts sometimes switch premium live events to different dates on the calendar, but they also occasionally axe them from the year completely.

That has been the case for WWE Payback for three years now. This pay-per-view debuted in 2013 and ran for five consecutive years before going on hiatus until 2020, which was the latest iteration of the event.

Now, WWE is bringing the show back. WWE announced that WWE Payback will go down on September 2nd and will emanate from the PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA.

The timing of WWE Payback's return is noteworthy, as it could signal two premium live events in the month of September. This past May, WWE CEO Nick Khan confirmed that WWE will be heading to India in September for a live event, but he did not specify whether it would be exclusive to the attending crowd or if it would be streamed via Peacock. Beyond that, previous reports indicated that WWE was looking to bring a stadium show to Australia sometime soon, which many speculated to be September 2nd due to rumblings that WWE was eyeing that date for a premium live event. The fact that that date has been taken by the US-based WWE Payback could mean that Australia plans have fallen through or have been pushed to a later time.

While a "B-show," WWE Payback is one of the more significant WWE premium live events in the past decade. The last iteration of WWE Payback was when Roman Reigns captured the WWE Universal Championship, setting him on his record-shattering run that is still active to this day. Past WWE Payback shows have been headlined by The Shield vs. Evolution, Reigns vs. AJ Styles, and John Cena vs. Ryback.

All Elite Wrestling has not confirmed plans for AEW All Out yet, but that pay-per-view typically runs on the first Sunday of September. If that remains true this year, WWE and AEW will both have events during the same weekend for the second consecutive year. In 2022, WWE Clash and the Castle and AEW All Out ran on back-to-back days.

WWE Payback goes down on September 2nd.