WWE: Indianapolis & New Orleans Reportedly Uncertain About Hosting Timeline for Future WrestleMania Events, Drew McIntyre Reportedly Joins Cast of New “Highlander” Reboot Film, More News

Indianapolis & New Orleans Reportedly Uncertain About Hosting Timeline for Future WrestleMania Events

As noted before, WWE signed a multi-year contract with the Indiana Sports Corp in June of 2024 to bring a future WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble event at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. The first event of this new deal was this past January’s Royal Rumble event 2025.

Fightful Select reported that Indianapolis officials spoken to stated that they believe that the earliest the city could land one of its guaranteed WWE events is SummerSlam 2027. This reportedly is due to Minneapolis is already scheduled to host SummerSlam 2026.

Those spoken to reportedly also stated that they are currently uncertain on a potential timeline for a future WrestleMania event in the city. One source spoken to reportedly stated that have no clue on when a WrestleMania will actually take place in the city.

It was reported that despite the current uncertainty, WWE’s partnership with Indianapolis officials is still strong following the success of Wrestlepalooza in the city.

In regards to New Orleans, one source close to the city’s agreements stated that they will “believe it when they see it” in regards to the uncertainty of when a future WrestleMania event will finally take place there.

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Drew McIntyre Reportedly Joins Cast of New “Highlander” Reboot Film

Deadline reported that Drew McIntyre recently joined the cast for an upcoming new Highlander film.

It was reported that this upcoming new film is a reboot of the classic 1986 film of the same name. It was also reported that this upcoming film is being produced by Amazon MGM Studios’ United Artists and is being directed by John Wick series director Chad Stahelski.

McIntyre reportedly will be portraying the role of Angus MacLeod, who is the brother of the main character Henry Cavill.

Besides McIntyre, former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista is also among the film’s cast.

The official description for this upcoming film is “An immortal Scottish swordsman faces off with other immortal warriors in order to obtain a coveted ability.”

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WWE News & Notes

WWE reportedly has sold and distributed around 1,342 tickets for tonight’s NXT No Mercy 2025 event at the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida as of Friday evening, according to WrestleTix.

Steve Stasiak of Book Pro Wrestlers reported that Vince McMahon gave away special gifts at his recent 80th birthday party at the Baccarat Hotel in New York City, New York. Stasiak reported that these special gifts were busts of McMahon’s head and only 100 of them were made and handed out to hand-picked guests at the party. Stasiak also released a photo of the busts that were given to guests at the party.

Deadline reported that NBC Universal recently warned YouTube TV subscribers that they could potentially lose access to NBCU content on the service on September 30th if they do not come to terms for a new agreement with YouTube. This content blackout would include USA Network and Peacock, which are the current homes of WWE’s SmackDown and Saturday Night Main Event shows and NXT PLEs in the United States. In an official statement to Deadline, a YouTube spokesperson stated “NBCUniversal asking us to pay more than what they charge consumers for the same content on Peacock, which would mean less flexibility and higher prices for our subscribers. We are committed to working with NBCUniversal to reach a fair deal for both sides ahead of our current agreement expiring on September 30. If their content is unavailable for an extended period of time, we’ll offer our subscribers a $10 credit.“

WWE reportedly drew an attendance of 14,242 for their Sept. 20th Wrestlepalooza event at the Gainbridge Field House in Indianapolis, Indiana, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

While WWE did not tout the numbers for their Wrestlepalooza event despite usually doing so for a successful Premium Live Event, Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that both WWE and ESPN were happy with the viewership numbers for the show. Meltzer reported that WWE likely drew a lower viewership number for Wrestlepalooza than their past PLEs on Peacock due to ESPN’s new streaming service having fewer total subscribers in the United States than Peacock.

WWE recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a singles match of Dustin Rhodes vs. Jake Roberts from the September 26, 1992 episode of WCW Saturday Night.

WWE also recently released two new videos to their WWE Vault channel. The first new video was a “Best of Mr. Perfect | Over 2 HOURS of Full Matches vs. Hart, Flair, Michaels AND MORE.” The second new video was a WWE Championship Hell in a Cell match of The Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar (c) from WWE No Mercy 2002.

In a recent interview with the Good Karma Wrestling podcast, Ricky Saints gave his thoughts about CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Cody Rhodes and the late Jax Dane being among those who helped him grow and reach his current point in his wrestling career. Saints stated “There’s a few people in my life that have really helped me. You’ve got Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Cody, Shawn Spears; people like that, that have really, along the way, helped guide me to this point that I’m getting to. Even some guys that are not as known. God rest his soul, Jax Dane was another guy from NWA that really took me under his wing and helped me out. So, I can’t say that this was a lonesome journey, for sure. There are people who have helped as much as they could, as much as they have been able to help. So I do think that this Saturday, it is on me to not only make them proud, but to make myself proud and my family proud as well.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Ringsiders Wrestling podcast, Priscilla Kelly, former Gigi Dolin in WWE, gave her thoughts about the reason why it takes longer for some NXT talents to get called up to WWE’s main roster than others. Kelly stated “I know there’s people backstage that definitely felt like they should have been called up to the main roster a long time ago. But sometimes it’s not even based on if you, as a wrestler, are ready for the opportunity. Sometimes it’s just a matter of timing on the main roster; who can they use at this point, what kind of characters are they looking for right this second, and sometimes people get lucky and they fit that mold of what they’re looking for right there at that moment. Maxxine (Dupri) was a great example. She was in NXT for maybe a year, definitely less than two years, and that’s what they were looking for right then and there, and she got called up immediately. So sometimes it’s just a timing issue. It’s not even based on if people are ready, it’s just timing. That’s one of the things Hunter told me himself. When I went up to do Main Event one of the last times, I said, ‘Hey, what can I do to get up here? I wanna come to the main roster. What do I need to do? What do I need to improve on? What do I need to do to get here?’ And he said, straight from his mouth, ‘It’s just timing,’ and it really is. Everything is just timing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)