Recent weeks have seen reports that WWE is looking to modify its premium live event schedule for 2023. At present, the majority of active WWE PLEs have a gimmick attached, such as Elimination Chamber, Hell in a Cell, and of course the Royal Rumble. This, it seems, is due to change under the creative regime of Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque.
It’s previously been stated that Levesque, WWE’s Chief Content Officer, is looking to remove such events. The future of the Hell in a Cell event, for example, was outright stated as “dead” under the regime of ‘The Game’. Elimination Chamber, however, will remain, having been announced for Saturday, 18 February in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Triple H Expected To Revive King Of The Ring Event
Per WrestleVotes’ new interview with GiveMeSport’s Louis Dangoor, it appears that the King of the Ring premium live event is making a return. Though the tournament has been held on five separate occasions following the last pay-per-view, it hasn’t been held as a standalone event since 2002. The closest WWE came was by hosting the semifinals and finals of the 2015 instalment on the WWE Network as a special broadcast.
Should the tournament return as a premium live event, it’s heavily believed that it will revert to being a one-night tournament, as was the case in the eighties:
“There’s a very good chance that King of the Ring is back, and likely back in the format that had happened in the late eighties. The idea is that every single match will happen that night.
In the nineties, a lot of the matches happened on Superstars and Raw, with the semifinals and finals on pay-per-view. If it’s going to come back on pay-per-view, which I would say is probably going to happen, you’re going to have a full-on one-night tournament.”
The King of the Ring was last held in 2021, concluding at that October’s Crown Jewel event. Xavier Woods bested Finn Balor in the finals to become King Woods.