The Latest On WWE's Plans For India Show In Early 2023

It had previously been reported that next year, WWE will be taking its first trip to India since 2017 — the year Indo-Canadian wrestler Jinder Mahal won the WWE Championship. Now, PWInsider is reporting that the event will take place at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium in the city of Hyderabad, a venue was built about 20 years ago and has a maximum capacity of 5,000 people.

The event will reportedly take place on January 18, 2023, almost exactly two years after WWE's last India-themed event, Superstar Spectacle, which took place in the United States on January 26, 2021. Superstar Spectacle saw various WWE stars take on, and/or team with, multiple different Indian talents, with the main event seeing Mahal team with the Singh Brothers against Drew McIntyre, Veer, and Sanga. There were no live fans live attendance, as WWE was still in the "Thunderdome" era due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

PWInsider is also reporting that the upcoming event will feature mainly stars from WWE's "SmackDown" brand, where Mahal currently resides. Mahal has not wrestled very often since Paul "Triple H" Levesque became WWE Chief Content Officer, with his only televised singles match coming in a quick loss to Braun Strowman in the first round of the "SmackDown" World Cup tournament. In addition to his world title reign in 2017, Mahal won the WWE United States Championship in 2018, at WrestleMania 34, though he lost it to Jeff Hardy a mere eight days later.

In WWE's last trip to India, Mahal took on Triple H himself in the main event, only to be defeated by "The Game." The match came less than a month after Mahal lost the WWE Championship to AJ Styles on "WWE SmackDown."