The head of Game Changer Wrestling is not a fan of WrestleMania 41 moving locations next year.
Brett Lauderdale appeared on The Business of The Business Podcast with John Poz & Lavie Margolin and spoke about the abrupt move by WWE after announcing New Orleans as the site for 2026, before changing course and moving the events to Las Vegas.
I don’t like it. I think it’s against the spirit of WrestleMania, you know? The whole idea is it’s somewhere different every year, you know, the Super Bowl doesn’t go to the same town every year. Part of the fun for people and the hardcore fans, and dedicated fans, is that they make trips out of this. WrestleMania is like their pilgrimage. (Traveling to) Vegas, one year was challenging for a lot of people, now you’re making people go back there again. I think it dampens the whole idea.
I can’t believe it, that’s so unprecedented. You go out of your way to make a deal and announce it. I mean, people already made travel plans, people already booked stuff. First of all, how do they even get away with that? Isn’t there contracts that are locked in with lots of money on the line? I guess at the end of the day, they don’t care, but it doesn’t seem like a great look for a corporate entity to do that, right?
Lauderdale added that GCW was in discussions and scouting for venues for The Collective and moving toward a contract, but had not signed anything and noting they “would have been in a lot of trouble” if they had signed anything.
In May, Highspots owner Michael Bochicchio spoke with POST Wrestling and noted they had signed a deal for space in New Orleans:
We had already contracted space in NOLA. We hadn’t announced anything because our next event is August (SummerSlam), and we’re 100 percent focused on that event. It will be interesting to see how difficult/expensive it will be to get out of the NOLA contract and the impact it may have on our process moving forward. IF this was that easy, I’m sure everybody would be doing it, so it’s just part of the experience.
WrestleMania 42 is now scheduled for April 18-19, 2026, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, with New Orleans expected to get a WrestleMania in a future year.
GCW is airing its Backyard Wrestling 7 event on Friday at 2 p.m. ET on TrillerTV+.
