| WWE in Canada | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Created by | Vince McMahon |
| Promotions | WWE |
| Brands | Raw SmackDown NXT |
WWE (formerly World Wrestling Federation and World Wrestling Entertainment), an American professional wrestling promotion based in Stamford, Connecticut in the United States owned by TKO previously the McMahon family, has been promoting events in Canada since its founding in 1980.
On January 24, 1963, Toots Mondt of the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) got into a dispute with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) over "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers losing the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Lou Thesz in a one-fall match in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This disagreement led to Mondt, McMahon, and the CWC leaving the NWA in protest, creating the World Wide Wrestling Federation (the predecessor to the WWE) in the process. [1] [2]
In 1984 Vince McMahon purchased Stampede Wrestling, before selling it back the following year. [3] Also in 1984, WWF acquired Maple Leaf Wrestling, and continued to run it for a couple of years. In 1986 Maple Leaf Wrestling was shut down, and the name was used for the Canadian broadcasts of WWF Superstars of Wrestling.
In 1985 WWF created the WWF Canadian Championship, which was given to Dino Bravo. Bravo was the Canadian International Heavyweight Championship for many years for Lutte Internationale. Due to his previous success, Bravo was billed as the WWF Canadian Champion in some Canadian cities until January 1986, when the title was abandoned. [4]
In 1986 WWF hosted The Big Event in Toronto which drew over 74,000 fans. [5] Ten years later, the WWF held an anniversary show of The Big Event, WWF Xperience, which drew over 21,000 fans. [6]
In 1997 Survivor Series was broadcast from Montreal and is infamous for the Montreal Screwjob. [7]
WrestleMania X8 in 2002 set the attendance record for an indoor event in Canada, at the Rogers Centre 68,236 people. [8]
In 2019, Montreal hosted the 2019 WWE Superstar Shake-up. [9]
In its early days, WWF/E programming was shown on TSN for Monday Night Raw and The Score for SmackDown! broadcasts. The programs were also aired on CHCH Hamilton, CJNT Montreal, CKMI Quebec and CKVR Barrie. ECW and NXT were seen on Global Television Network until 2010.
Beginning in 2014, WWE content is distributed exclusively via Rogers Media. [10] As part of this agreement, Rogers distributes WWE's weekly television shows, Raw , SmackDown , NXT , Main Event , and This Week in WWE on Sportsnet 360. [10] This deal excludes reality series, such as Total Divas (which is produced for E! and shown on its Canadian counterpart owned by Bell Media).
As part of this deal, the WWE Network's live stream was offered as a traditional TV channel for subscribers to cable providers, instead of a standalone service. [11] [12] [13]
On September 7, 2017, WWE and TVA Sports announced a multi-year agreement to air a weekly recap of Raw in French. [14]
Beginning January 1, 2025, all the Canadian rights to its weekly series Raw , and rights to all other programming (including content currently associated with the WWE Network), would move to Netflix in stages. Netflix and WWE confirmed on January 23, 2024 that the Canadian rights to Raw would move in January 2025—aligning with Rogers' contract having been previously announced as ending in 2024, and suggesting that other Canadian rights would move at the same time. [15] [16] [17]
From 2019 to 2024, SmackDown aired on Fox which is available to Canadian providers. Since 2024, NXT also airs on The CW, that is also available for distribution in Canada. In addition, Saturday Night's Main Event airs on NBC which is also available to Canadian providers, but during its first revived run from 2006 to 2008, it was simulcasted on Global and Citytv.
| Date | Name | Brand | Venue | City | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 23, 1995 | Raw | Brandon, Manitoba | |||
| October 23, 1995 Aired October 30, 1995 | Raw | Brandon, Manitoba | |||
| October 23, 1995 Aired November 6, 1995 | Raw | Brandon, Manitoba | |||
| October 23, 1995 Aired November 13, 1995 | Raw | Brandon, Manitoba | |||
| January 31, 1997 Aired February 3, 1997 | Raw | SkyDome | Toronto, Ontario | This was the first 2-hour Raw | |
| July 7, 1997 | Raw | Northlands Coliseum | Edmonton, Alberta | ||
| July 21, 1997 | Raw | Halifax Metro Centre | Halifax, Nova Scotia | ||
| November 10, 1997 | Raw | Corel Centre | Ottawa, Ontario | ||
| November 11, 1997 Aired November 17, 1997 | Raw | Cornwall Civic Complex | Cornwall, Ontario | ||
| February 8, 1999 Aired February 13, 1999 | Raw | SkyDome | Toronto, Ontario | ||
| May 29, 2000 | Raw | General Motors Place | Vancouver, British Columbia | ||
King and Queen of the Ring, formerly and still commonly known as simply King of the Ring, is a professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. The event was established in 1993 and centers on the men's King of the Ring tournament, which had been established in 1985, and beginning in 2024, the women's Queen of the Ring tournament, which was established in 2021 and originally known as the Queen's Crown tournament.
Saturday Night's Main Event is a series of American professional wrestling television specials produced by WWE. It was originally broadcast by NBC from 1985 to 1992, replacing Saturday Night Live in its late night timeslot on an occasional basis throughout the year. Currently, this program features characters from the Raw and SmackDown brands, to which WWE wrestlers are assigned to work and perform.
Shayna Andrea Baszler is an American professional wrestler and a former kickboxer and mixed martial artist. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand as a member of the Pure Fusion Collective stable. Baszler is a former two-time and longest combined-reigning NXT Women's Champion and a former record-tying three-time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion.
Theodore James "TJ" Wilson, better known by the ring name Tyson Kidd, is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he works as a producer.
Heath Wallace Miller is an American former professional wrestler. He is best known for his tenure in WWE under the ring name Heath Slater. He also performed in Impact Wrestling, under the mononymous name Heath.
Brian Myers is an American professional wrestler. He is signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he is a member of The System. He is a three-time TNA World Tag Team Champion, having held the title with Trevor Lee and Eddie Edwards twice, and is also a former one-time TNA Digital Media Champion. He is best known for his tenures in WWE from 2006 to 2014 and 2016 to 2020 under the ring name Curt Hawkins.
Gabbi Alon Tuft is an American TikToker, nutritionist, and retired professional wrestler. Tuft is best known for her time with WWE under the ring name Tyler Reks. Tuft also competed in WWE's developmental territory Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), where she won the FCW Florida Heavyweight Championship once and the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship twice, once with Joe Hennig and once with Johnny Curtis.
Yuvraj Singh Dhesi is a Canadian professional wrestler. He is performing on the independent circuit under his real name, stylized as Raj Dhesi. He works for various promotions such as Game Changer Wrestling (GCW), Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA), where he is one-half of the current AAA World Tag Team Champions in his first reign, and International Wrestling Association. He is best known for his tenure in WWE, where he performed under the ring name Jinder Mahal and is a former 1-time WWE Champion, WWE United States Champion, and 2-time WWE 24/7 Champion.
Matthew Adams is an Australian professional wrestler. He is signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) under the ring name Buddy Matthews and is a member of the stable Hounds of Hell. He is a former one-time AEW World Trios Champion. Adams also makes appearances on the independent circuit and is best known for his time with WWE where he performed under the ring name Buddy Murphy.
Tom Büdgen is a Dutch professional wrestler. He is signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he performs under the ring name Malakai Black. He is a former one-time AEW World Trios Champion. He is also known for his work in WWE, where he performed as Aleister Black from 2017 to 2021.
Sunny Dhinsa is a Canadian professional wrestler and former amateur wrestler. As of 2022, is signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Akam as a member of Authors of Pain and as a subgroup of The Final Testament stable.
Sarah Rowe is an American professional wrestler signed to WWE, where she performs under the ring name Valhalla. From 2017 to 2019, she was a member of the stable The Riott Squad with Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott and performed under the name Sarah Logan. Bridges is also known for her tenure on the independent circuit, performing under the name Crazy Mary Dobson.
Steffanie Newell is a Welsh professional wrestler. She performs on the independent circuit under the ring name Nixon Newell. She is best known for her tenure in the American professional wrestling promotion WWE, where she performed under the ring name Tegan Nox. Newell has also wrestled on the British independent circuit, most notably for promotions such as Attack! Pro Wrestling and Progress Wrestling.
Raw is a brand of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE that was established on March 25, 2002. Brands are divisions of WWE's roster where wrestlers are assigned to perform on a weekly basis when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers assigned to Raw primarily appear on the brand's weekly television program, Monday Night Raw, also referred to simply as Raw. It is one of WWE's two main brands, along with SmackDown, collectively referred to as WWE's main roster. The brand extension was discontinued between August 2011 and July 2016.
WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion based in Stamford, Connecticut in the United States, owned by Endeavor. It has been promoting events in the United Kingdom (UK) since 1989. From 1989 to 2001, WWE was promoted under concert promoter's, brothers Harvey and Martin Goldsmith, for UK and European shows.
The Survivor Series match is a professional wrestling tag team elimination match held in WWE. The match typically sees two teams pitted against each other and members of the teams are eliminated one-by-one until one entire team is eliminated. Members of the winning team are deemed the "survivors", and in some cases, there may only be one survivor. Although the matches typically see four or five people per team, there have been as many as 10 on a team, and as few as one on a team in a pre-stipulated handicap situation. The match is typically held at WWE's annual Survivor Series pay-per-view and livestreaming event with only the 1998, 2002, 2022, 2023, and 2024 events not including the namesake match.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several men's world championships since Capitol Wrestling Corporation seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance in 1963 to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was later subjected to various name changes, including World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)—in April 2011, the company ceased using its full name and has since just been referred to as WWE. The company's first world championship was the WWE Championship, which was established along with the promotion's creation in 1963 as the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship; it is still active today and is WWE's oldest active title. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate world championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
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