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"We have created something called 205 Live, which is a show involving our cruiserweights, which is another whole division in which we are starting up now, which will again have its own sources of revenue in terms of live events as well as other things that are all – merchandising, licensing and all of that." - Vince McMahon, February 2017
World Wrestling Entertainment will move forward with the first-ever 205 Live brand live events starting in January 2018, PWInsider.com has confirmed.
The current plan is for 205 Live to have its first standalone live events on the weekend of 1/18/18-1/20/18. We are told WWE will be targeting smaller buildings in the Northeast for that weekend, possibly the same venues they utilize for the WWE NXT brand.
It appears WWE will be taking a "let's walk before we can run" stance with the brand. The current 205 Live touring plan appears to be running 2-3 events over a weekend once a month, but beyond the January and potential February dates, we are told that nothing has been set in stone and it's being seen as something of an experiment.
The 205 Live brand, which recently celebrated its first anniversary, was born out of the very successful 2016 Cruiserweight Classic tournament, which led to a number of talents being signed full-time by WWE. 205 Live was launched a year ago under the strategy of adding weekly live programming to the WWE Network, effectively replacing the taped WWE Superstars series. Cruiserweight talents have been appearing regularly on Monday Night Raw since that time as a way to hook fans into subscribing to the WWE Network to watch the series.
Over the last six months, 205 Live took a major step forward with the addition of current Cruiserweight champion Enzo Amore, who brought a strong personality to the weekly storylines. The brand will get another boon when WWE NXT star Hideo Itami joins the roster shortly.
During a WWE quarter earnings conference call back in February, Vince McMahon noted there were plans to create revenue sources for 205 Live, including live events, licensing and merchandising. Until now, nothing had moved forward, officially, in terms of those plans and the Cruiserweights continued to work TV tapings.
In 2018, we will start to see those plans rolled out and how the brand will fare when it goes on the road and whether that leads to additional merchandising for the brand and its performers.
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