The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) announced that the upcoming Wrestlepalooza will be the first live event to stream on ESPN as part of the companies’ recently minted partnership, according to Deadline’s Katie Campione. Earlier this month, the organization, which boasts the largest wrestling promotion in the world, signed a five-year collaboration with the sports conglomerate that would take effect in 2026. Now, though, it would appear the deal is taking effect earlier than expected.
“On September 20,” WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque announced in a statement obtained by Deadline, “WWE and ESPN are coming together for a can’t-miss event to kick off our new partnership. The biggest Superstars in WWE. The biggest brand in sports media. Are you ready?”
The announcement comes less than a day before ESPN’s new DTC app, which will integrate WWE content on select plans, is scheduled to launch on August 21st. However, due to the company’s existing partnership with Peacock, the WWE content will not become available until September 20th.
Readers with shrewd knowledge of the WWE’s existing contract with Peacock might be wondering how the promotion managed to slip out from under its current streaming partner almost six months earlier than initially stated. Per The Hollywood Reporter, representatives for the WWE contended that since Peacock split each of the wrestling organization’s two most-watched premium live-events (or PLEs), WrestleMania and SummerSlam, into two-night affairs, the WWE had already provided Peacock with the agreed-upon number of events. As such, Peacock’s final PLE, Clash in Paris, will stream on September 1st. But to preserve the partnership (and perhaps to smooth things over), the two companies also worked out a multiyear deal to stream four of the WWE’s Saturday Night Main Events on Peacock every year, including legend John Cena’s hotly-anticipated retirement match.
The 2025 Wrestlepalooza, which will be headlined by Cena in Indianapolis according to Deadline, is WWE’s revamped version of a similar event held by one of their former competitors, Extreme Championship Wrestling in the late 1990s. When the WWE bought the ECW in late 2003, they gained the rights to revive the event — and after twenty-two years, the moment has finally arrived.
The ESPN DTC streaming service will release tomorrow on August 21st.