Vince McMahon Annual Show Finally Shelved By WWE

One show that became synonymous with Vince McMahon’s leadership in WWE is no more after the company quietly shelved it.

In 2003, WWE held the first-ever Tribute To The Troops event in Baghdad, Iraq during the second Gulf War. Heralded as an idea of WWE Hall of Famer JBL, WWE paid tribute to US servicemen and women and entertained them as only the company could by putting on a wrestling show.

For the following two decades, Tribute To The Troops was a firm part of WWE’s calendar although it was not as prominently advertised as it was in its early days. And now it seems that the company have shelved the event entirely.

Vince McMahon’s Tribute To The Troops Shelved By WWE

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that with 2024 almost over, WWE has made no mention of Tribute To The Troops and while it might not be gone forever, it’s definitely on the shelf for now and it might have something to do with its close association with disgraced ex-WWE chairman Vince McMahon:

It’s done. Obviously the year being up, for the last month people have been asking, when are they taping it? It was not being taped, they had too many other things going on. I don’t know if it’s done for good but this is the first year that they haven’t done anything with that. I think 2019, I believe they didn’t do a television show but they still did events, they still taped stuff. But this year nothing.

It was a Vince McMahon thing and it’s not Vince’s company anymore. It’s not something you’re going to advertise ‘we’re not doing this anymore’ but it quietly went away this year.

The 2023 edition of Tribute To The Troops aired as a special episode of SmackDown on December 8 of that year. JBL returned to commentary for the show as LA Knight and Randy Orton teamed in the main event to defeat The Bloodline’s Solo Sikoa and Jimmy Uso.

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