Jeff Jarrett says WWE will have had a backup plan for WrestleMania 43 from the moment it agreed to hold it in Saudi Arabia, and that the bigger question is why the company has not given its most loyal customers a date.
WWE announced Riyadh as the host a year ago. Nick Khan said last week that the creative is already finished. There is still no date. Conrad Thompson asked Jarrett on My World why that might be. Jarrett said he did not want to get into conspiracy theories and pointed at instability in the region as the first thing that came to mind, which is also where Thompson had taken it.
On whether there is a plan B, Jarrett did not hesitate.
“I think they had a backup plan. Maybe not dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, but I think they had it when they agreed to the deal,” he said.
His reasoning is about what the event is to the business.
“It’s not a Clash of Champions. It’s not even a Rumble. When you’re out selling sponsors, the entire DNA of World Wrestling Entertainment,” Jarrett said. “When you create any kind of data, the analytics, the finance, marketing. When you’re talking to a talent, when you’re writing creatively, WrestleMania is the north star of the organisation. Period. And has been since the mid-80s.”
He extended that to every deal the company does.
“When you create these fancy decks to go out, whether it’s a TV deal or a Fanatics deal, or you go to the analysts or go to data research, wherever you’re at in that wheel of WWE, your north star is WrestleMania,” he said. “And when you agree to go and remove this from North America, you inherently take the risk. So I’m positive they’ve got a backup plan at this point in super granular detail.”
He drew the line at creative, saying he does not believe they will have a second set of plans written because too much can change.
Where Jarrett was more critical was the silence itself, and he framed it around the people who build a holiday around the show every year.
“Why are they not giving their most loyal, high-paying customers a date to land on?” he said. “Those on-location folks, those travel package folks, all the people that have built a pilgrimage off every year.”
He noted that a Middle East date may actually be easier for some of them.
“People come from Australia. They literally come from all over the world. So if you’re coming from Australia, it’s probably cheaper to get to the Middle East than it is to the US. Same with Japan,” Jarrett said.
Thompson’s argument was that holding the date back stops rival promotions and conventions building a weekend around it. Jarrett’s response was a football analogy.
“What would Nick Saban say? Do you play to win or not to lose? You play to win,” he said. “So is there a strategy that hey, we don’t want to tell anybody, we don’t want them to counter-program? Isn’t that playing not to lose?”
His own view is that the company should commit.
“If you don’t put your flag in the ground and say here’s the date, here’s the marketing package, here’s the event, here’s what we’re doing, like commit, go,” Jarrett said.
He also made a point about the space it leaves behind. If there is no WrestleMania in North America in the spring, he said, that vacuum gets filled by somebody regardless.
WWE has not announced dates for WrestleMania 43. The event is expected in April 2027. Khan said last week that WWE will run two nights of watch parties at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, pairing each with either NXT or AAA, which is the company’s answer to the travel question Jarrett is raising.
JBL, who is on the AAA broadcast team and will be at one of those MSG nights, was asked the same question on Something to Wrestle With and could not answer it either. He said he does not have WWE’s talent relations app on his phone and has no intention of installing it, and narrowed the date down as far as somewhere around March, April, May, June or July next year.
