News

WWE News: Madison Square Garden Will Host Raw and Smackdown TV on September 9/10, Ticket Info

By John Canton • Published 15th July 2019
TJR Wrestling

This news was known a few weeks ago, but it was announced officially by WWE today. Madison Square Garden, also known as the “World’s Most Famous Arena” in New York City, will be the host of WWE’s Monday Night Raw and Smackdown Live on September 9th and 10th.

The reason why this is significant is because it has been nearly ten years since WWE had Raw or Smackdown at MSG. Whenever WWE goes to the New York City area for television, they usually go to Barclays Center in Brooklyn or in Long Island, NY, which is where Raw is tonight. While WWE hasn’t been at MSG for TV in nearly a decade, they do regularly go to MSG every 3-4 months. The main reason for not going to MSG for TV tapings is because it’s a lot more expensive than running Barclays or other arenas in the area.

Here’s the official announcement from WWE, plus a video from Seth Rollins.

WWE Live TV returns to Madison Square Garden for the first time in 10 years with back-to-back episodes of Raw, taking place on Sept. 9 & SmackDown LIVE on Sept. 10.

Combo & individual event tickets will be available this Friday July 19 at 10 a.m. ET at ticketmaster.com

The last time Monday Night Raw took place at MSG was Nov. 16, 2009, featuring John Cena & The Undertaker against Triple H & Shawn Michaels of D-Generation X against Chris Jericho & Big Show of JeriShow in a Triple Threat Tag Team Match.

Don’t miss your opportunity to be part of the action when Raw and SmackDown LIVE return to “The World’s Most Famous Arena” this September.

The MSG Twitter account also posted this.

https://twitter.com/TheGarden/status/1150859503652548609

TJR Thoughts: It will be nice to get Raw and Smackdown from WWE’s “home” arena again. Since WWE’s $400+ million per year TV deals are kicking in this October, they can pretty much afford to do anything anymore, so “costing too much” is less of a factor.

I also think a reason for this happening is because MSG had a sold out New Japan/Ring of Honor show in April during WrestleMania. The AAA promotion out of Mexico is also running MSG this year, but ticket sales are said to be slow. It’s possible that MSG and WWE made a deal that if WWE runs TV or a PPV in MSG then maybe MSG won’t have other promotions in the building. I don’t know if that’s true, but it might be a valid theory.

There will be some tough competition on September 9 because that’s the first night in 2019 where Raw is up against Monday Night Football on ESPN. They have a doubleheader that night with the Houston Texans at the New Orleans Saints and the Denver Broncos at the Oakland Raiders.