For the first time since 2002, Rogers Centre in Toronto hosted a WWE premium live event with Elimination Chamber on Saturday night.
It was announced that 38,393 fans attended the show, a far cry from the 68,237 that packed the stadium formerly known as SkyDome for WrestleMania X-8.
Which begs the question: Is the city of Toronto still a viable option for a future WrestleMania?
If you ask WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, “The 6ix” is still in play.
“Any place that has a vibrant fan base, and has a building like this, the Rogers Centre, that we can go into and pack it with a lot of people and get them there from all over the globe,” Levesque said in his post-show media conference. “So it’s definitely on the list.”
Even though Toronto meets those requirements, Levesque adds that it’s more complicated than that when it comes to selecting a city for the WWE’s marquee event.
There is now a bidding process that the potential candidates must go through as the economic windfall of hosting a WrestleMania is worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” to the winning cities, according to Levesque.
So, while Canadian wrestling fans can hope for a future “Showcase of the Immortals” north of the border, the competition to host will continue to be fierce.
Just last week, WWE announced that New Orleans will host WrestleMania 42, the third time the event has gone to the Caesars Superdome.
This year, Las Vegas will be home for WrestleMania 41 on April 19 and 20.