World Wrestling Entertainment has canceled the WrestleMania event that was scheduled to be held in New Orleans in April 2026, leaving a big hole in the city’s hospitality calendar next year, city tourism officials said Thursday.
In February, movie star and wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announced at WWE’s Smackdown at the Smoothie King Center that New Orleans would host the huge event for the first time since 2018. It had been scheduled to be held over two nights, April 11-12, at the Caesars Superdome.
However, WWE informed New Orleans sports and tourism officials on Thursday that they no longer plan to bring the event to the city, according to Walt Leger, head of New Orleans & Co. WWE said they want to build on other events scheduled for New Orleans and might bring WrestleMania to the city in some future year, he added.
“We’ve worked with them for the last several days to try to identify some future dates and future events to bring to the city,” Leger said.
WrestleMania is the biggest professional wrestling event of the year, showcasing more than a dozen matchups between the industry’s most celebrated performers. Tourism leaders had compared its potential impact to almost that of a Taylor Swift concert or Super Bowl.
New Orleans & Co. and the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation said they could not comment on why the event in New Orleans was canceled.
WWE officials were not immediately available for comment.
Expanding a partnership?
While the reason for the cancellation remains unclear, Leger noted that there has been a lot of corporate shakeup at WWE and its ownership in recent years. In September 2023, WWE was taken over by Ultimate Fighting Championship, which is owned by Endeavor Group Holdings. TKO now runs WEE under its CEO, Dana White, while Endeavor’s CEO is Hollywood “super agent” Ari Emanuel.
After the departure early last year of longtime WWE chief Vince McMahon, a management shakeup resulted in the creation of the TKO Live Events Strategy Team, headed up by veteran UFC executive Peter Dropick, who is based in Las Vegas.
Paul Heyman, left, and Brock Lesnar of WWE’s ‘Smackdown.’
PHOTO PROVIDED BY WWE
In a joint statement with New Orleans & Company, the Sports Foundation said that they are working with TKO “to expand our long-standing partnership through a multi-event, multi-year agreement which will include UFC 318 (a mixed martial arts event) on July 19, 2025 (and) Money In The Bank (a wrestling event) in 2026.”
There is no firm date for a future WrestleMania.
WrestleMania 41 was held on April 19-20 this year at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. It attracted a total attendance of 124,693 fans over two nights, a new WWE record for the largest gate revenue, making it the most successful and highest-grossing WrestleMania in the company’s history, TKO said.
Beyond ticket sales, WrestleMania 41 also achieved record-breaking numbers in viewership, merchandise sales, sponsorship revenue, and social media engagement, the company said in an official statement to the New York Stock Exchange, where its shares are listed.
Stays in Vegas
After the success of this year’s event, the new leadership running WWE decided that they would rather hold next year’s event in Las Vegas and see what response they get from fans, according to an industry official who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name.
In February, The Rock, who was appointed to the TKO board of directors last year, waxed lyrically about his past association with New Orleans and its positive impact on wrestling over the years. He said the city was an easy pick for next year’s event after the success of Super Bowl LIX.
Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment superstar The Rock greets Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin during WWE Wrestlemania XXX in Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, La. Sunday, April 6, 2014. Though New Orleans has hosted many WWE events Wrestlemania 30 was first time Wrestlemania has been hosted in the city.
Matthew Hinton
WrestleMania 34, which was held in New Orleans in 2018, had an estimated economic impact of $175 million for the city, with three-quarters of the attendees coming from outside the area, according to a report by the consulting firm Enigma Research Corporation.
That was on total attendance for the one night event of 78,133 people, or a little over half the attendance at this year’s event.