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WWE RETURNS TO MADISON SQUARE GARDEN NEXT WEEK

WWE will finally, finally, finally return to New York City's Madison Square Garden next Friday 9/10 for a Super Smackdown taping featuring Raw and Smackdown tapings, including a live Friday Night Smackdown broadcast on FOX.

Announced for the taping:

*WWE Smackdown Women's Champion Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair.

*John Cena (in his last scheduled WWE appearance currently) & The Mysterios vs. WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns & The Usos.

Also advertised to appear at as "The Biggest Homecoming" are WWE Champion Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre, Edge, Sasha Banks, WWE Raw Women's Champion Charlotte Flair and Seth Rollins.

The Garden, long considered WWE's home arena, returned to full capacity for the first time since shuttering last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic with a Foo Fighters concert on 6/20.  The legendary facility had been operating for New York Rangers and New York Knicks games at a limited capacity in recent months but the concert was the first show presented by MSG in over 460 days.

WWE last ran MSG in December 2019, headlined by Becky Lynch vs. Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair in a steel cage match and Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens.  WWE had two scheduled events canceled during the pandemic, a March 2020 by event that was postponed until June before being canceled.  There was also the unannounced but traditional December 26th post-Christmas event.  New Japan Pro Wrestling was also slated to run MSG in August 2020 with the first-ever Wrestling Dynasty event. 

MSG was shuttered on 3/20/20 after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down all public gatherings over 500 at the time, announcing, “We support Governor Cuomo’s decision and starting tomorrow night, our New York venues will only host events that adhere to the Governor’s very clear parameters. This is a fluid situation and we will be back with further details when available.”  It returned with the aforementioned Foo Fighters concert.

The venue has hosted more historic title changes and milestone WWE events than any other dating back to the earliest days of professional wrestling promoted by the McMahon family.  

It is expected that WWE will also run the facility on 12/26 for their traditional post-Christmas event, which was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

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