WWE Worlds Collide Event Replacing NXT TakeOver During Royal Rumble 2020 Weekend

It appears WWE is looking to shake up its pay-per-view schedule for 2020. For the last three years NXT has run an NXT TakeOver event the night before WWE's annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view in the same city, with the latest being NXT TakeOver: Phoenix the night before the 2019 Royal Rumble in January. But according Pro Wrestling Sheet's Ryan Satin, WWE will replace the TakeOver event in January 2020 with a WWE Worlds Collide event.

Satin discovered on Monday that WWE's travel package information for the Royal Rumble weekend had a Worlds Collide show listed.

"Sources in WWE confirm this was not a mistake and that the schedule of NXT TakeOver events in 2020 with more details will be announced in the near future," he wrote.

The new program first appeared in January 2019 with a special tournament at the Royal Rumble Axxess event featuring stars from the NXT, NXT UK and 205 Live brands. A second World Collide taping took place at WrestleMania Axxess in April, which added wrestlers from Raw and SmackDown to the event and was released on the WWE Network in four episodes.

Velveteen Dream won the series' first tournament, which eventually earned him a shot at Johnny Gargano's NXT North American Championship. He won the title on January 30 at an NXT television taping, and has held it ever since.

NXT will partially make the jump from WWE Network to USA Network starting on Sept. 18. As a two-hour live show, the brand will split its time between the two networks before making the full transition to USA starting on Oct. 2. So far three matches have been announced for NXT's USA premiere — Dream vs. Roderick Strong for the NXT North American Championship, Mia Yim vs. Bianca Belair vs. Io Shirai for a shot at Shayna Baszler's NXT Women's Championship and Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain in a Street Fight.

NXT Champion Adam Cole recently stated in an interview with ComicBook.com that the brand will continue its current creative direction regardless of the change in networks.

"I think an important recipe for NXT success, and I can tell you that our team feels this exact same way, is we need to keep and stay true to what made NXT NXT," Cole said. "Because this move to the USA Network is not a mistake."

"It's not by accident," he continued. "It's because of what NXT brings to the table already. So I think we very much recognize that keeping that formula and doing more of what this brand does better than anybody is how we're going to succeed on the USA Network. Of course, there's going to be some exciting new things happening in NXT, but at the same time, we know what brought us to the dance, and we're going to stay true to that."