WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and vario ...

, an American

professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...

promotion based in Stamford,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

has been promoting events in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

since 1996 when they were the World Wrestling Federation.

History

WWE first toured the country in 1996. The next time WWE came to India was in November 2002, visiting

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

and

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

. The company returned to New Delhi in January 2016 for the two days event what was the first WWE event in India in 13 years. On 9 December 2017, a

house show A house show or live event is a professional wrestling event produced by a major promotion that is not televised, though they can be recorded. Promotions use house shows mainly to cash in on the exposure that they and their wrestlers receive du ...

titled ''WWE Live India Supershow'' was held at the

Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium The K. D. Jadhav Indoor Hall, formerly known as the Indraprashtha Stadium and Indira Gandhi Arena (officially Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium), is located at the Indraprastha Estate in the eastern region of New Delhi. It is the largest indoor sp ...

in New Delhi. In January 2019,

Triple H Paul Michael Levesque (born July 27, 1969), better known by the ring name Triple H, is an American business executive, actor, and retired professional wrestler currently serving as the chief content officer for WWE. He is widely regarded as on ...

stated that the WWE will eventually open a performance center in India. Two months later, the first ever WWE tryouts in India were held, in which approximately 60 men and 20 women were shortlisted. Beginning in 2019, an Indian edition of ''WWE Now'', hosted in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Gaelyn Mendonca Gaelyn Mendonca is an Indian actress, model and VJ for MTV India. She is best known for hosting WWE Now India and MTV Hustle. Early life and education Gaelyn Mendonca was born on 5 November 1988 in Mumbai, India, and grew up in Orlem. She ...

, was launched on WWE's

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel and other social media platforms. On 9 January 2021, the official Instagram account for the WWE in India announced a new event named

WWE Superstar Spectacle WWE Superstar Spectacle was a professional wrestling television special and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It featured wrestlers from the promotion's Raw, SmackDown, and NXT brand divisions. The event was taped on January 22, 2021, and ...

, which would air on

Indian Republic Day Republic Day is a public holiday in India where the country marks and celebrates the date on which the Constitution of India came into effect on 26 January 1950. This replaced the Government of India Act 1935 as the governing document of Indi ...

on the Sony Sports Network. Days later, on 12 January, it was further revealed that the event would be taped from the

Capitol Wrestling Center The WWE Performance Center is the official professional wrestling school system of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE. The promotion currently operates two Performance Center locations, which serve as training facilities for WWE w ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

. A number of WWE superstars have also visited India as part of promotional tours.

Events in India

Television series

WWE have produced several television series for their Indian audience over the years. Since 27 February 2018, they have aired live telecasts of

Raw Raw is an adjective usually describing: * Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made * Raw food, uncooked food Raw or RAW may also refer to: Computing and electronics * .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...

and

SmackDown ''WWE SmackDown'', also known as ''Friday Night SmackDown'' or simply ''SmackDown'', is an American professional wrestling television program produced by WWE that as of currently airs live every Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Fox Deportes simulc ...

. Live

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...

and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

language commentary was introduced in 2021. On 7 May 2007, a new WWE show for children named ''WWE 24X7'' premiered on

Jetix Jetix (stylized as JETIX) was a children's entertainment brand owned by The Walt Disney Company. The brand was for a slate of action/adventure-related programming blocks and television channels. Jetix programming mainly originated from the S ...

in India, which shown matches from their archives. WWE started airing taped shows on

Ten Sports Sony Sports Network, formerly Sony Pictures Sports Network, and also known as Sony TEN, is a group of Indian pay television sports channels owned by Culver Max Entertainment (formerly Sony Pictures Networks India). The original TEN Sports chan ...

in January 2015. Through this deal, an exclusive localised Raw recap show was made for the Indian market. The localised Raw show would later be announced as ''Raw Sunday Dhamaal'', a short-lived show which was replaced by ''WWE Sunday Dhamaal''. The show was perceived well with audiences, gaining an 'upward swing' of viewers after it had launched. From 2015 to 2017, a recap show produced by the WWE named ''Action Mania'', aired on

Zee Cinema Zee Entertainment Enterprises (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Essel Group. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, businesses related to mobile contents, and operates 45 ...

in Hindi exclusively in India. In 2020

Sony Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...

launched two Studio shows ''Blockbusters'' and ''Dhamaal League''.

Other shows

Several WWE superstars made special appearances in various shows during their promotional tour in India.

Kofi Kingston Kofi Nahaje Sarkodie-Mensah (born August 14, 1981) is a Ghanaian-born American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the NXT brand under the ring name Kofi Kingston. He appeared on WWE's NXT brand as one-hal ...

and Big E appeared on the 10 May 2017 episode of

Extraaa Innings T20 ''Extraaa Innings T20'' (also popularly called 'Extra Innings') is a cricket based show telecast in between match sessions during the Indian Premier League (IPL) that covered match analysis and expert opinions from commentators, retired players ...

. Months later, in October 2017,

Jinder Mahal Yuvraj Singh Dhesi (born July 19, 1986) is a Canadian professional wrestler currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand, under the ring name Jinder Mahal. Having started his career on the independent circuit, Mahal joine ...

appeared in an episode of

Sony SAB Sony SAB (formerly SAB TV) is an Indian pay television channel owned by Culver Max Entertainment. History Sony SAB was launched as SAB TV by Gautam Adhikari and Markand Adhikari under their company Sri Adhikari Brothers (thus the acronym) on ...

's sitcom

Sajan Re Phir Jhooth Mat Bolo ''Sajan Re Phir Jhoot Mat Bolo (SRPJMB)'' (English: "Honey do not lie again") is an Indian sitcom that was broadcast on SAB TV from 23 May 2017 to 14 September 2018. It is the sequel to ''Sajan Re Jhoot Mat Bolo'', and stars Hussain Kuwajerwala ...

. In 2018,

Matt Hardy Matthew Moore Hardy (born September 23, 1974) is an American professional wrestler currently signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW). He is best known for his time with WWE. With his real life brother Jeff, Hardy gained notoriety in WWF's tag team d ...

made a special appearance in singing reality show

Indian Idol ''Indian Idol'' is the Indian Reality television, music competition television franchise based on the ''Pop Idol'' format. Versions : Currently airing – 1 : Upcoming for airing – 0 : Recently concluded – 3 : No longer airing – ...

Special episode for India

WWE acknowledge that India is a big market and have great opportunity to promote professional wrestling in India. In 2021, WWE taped a special India centric show

and aired it on 26 January, the republic day of India.

Indian flag controversy

An episode of ''

Sunday Night Heat ''WWE Heat'' (formerly known as ''Sunday Night Heat'' and also known as ''Heat'') is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and aired from August 2, 1998 to May 30, 2008. Ori ...

'' was criticized for a segment featuring

Kurt Angle Kurt Steven Angle (born December 9, 1968) is an American retired professional wrestler, Wrestling at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Men's freestyle 100 kg, Olympic gold medalist in American freestyle wrestling, and former Collegiate wrestling, ...

and

Tiger Ali Singh Gurjit Singh Hans (born March 9, 1971) is a Canadian professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1997 to 2002 under the ring name Tiger Ali Singh. He is the son of professional wrestler ...

in which Angle blew his nose in the Indian national flag. On 15 January 2016, days before the WWE arrived in India for their

events in 2016, a group named ''Aadvanshi Veer Sena'' threatened to protest against the company's tour unless they apologised for Angle's incident. Five days after their claims to protest if an apology was not given, WWE International's Executive Vice President, Gerrit Meier, apologised for the incident, saying: "This case is about 20-years-ago and we did not deliberately do that. We have a great respect for the country. We are sorry that it happened, but we had no intention of doing it. India is a reputable country and we apologise for this… We are extremely pleased that India is hosting the live events again. There are good number of fans and I am confident that they will enjoy it all. Nearly 14 years later, we are once again on the ground of India will play a WWE match."

References

{{WWE

Professional wrestling controversies