WWE has sights set on Las Vegas for SummerSlam and more

Bonanza High School and UNLV alum Nick Khan worked as an usher at the Caesar’s Palace outdoor arena when Wrestlemania came to Las Vegas in 1993.

He will attend Saturday night’s SummerSlam at Allegiant Stadium in a more prominent capacity as the president and chief revenue officer of the WWE.

The event will be the organization’s first full-capacity stadium show since Wrestlemania 35 in April 2019, making it a massive milestone for the company and a sentimental one for Khan.

“My wife is here with me and our two children,” he said Friday. “We met at UNLV in 1995, so it’s the 26th anniversary of our first date this December.”

The night will be special as well for Joe Anoa’i, better known in WWE circles as Roman Reigns. He grew up as a football star in Florida, but has his own memories of Las Vegas.

“Me and my wife have always been huge fans of Vegas,” he said. “We’re not big gamblers. We enjoy the lights and energy and the gathering of a mass amount of people all there for a good time. I’ve alway been kind of a people-watcher. I’ve never minded just sitting back and watching craziness. That’s what Vegas is to me.”

All eyes will be on him on Saturday night. Reigns is one of the biggest stars of the WWE. He will put his Universal Belt on the line against John Cena in the featured attraction of the event.

While he has performed in venues all over the globe, the former Georgia Tech star defensive tackle admits there will be something special about Saturday night.

“There’s no denying that being in Las Vegas, the entertainment destination, the way the city captures the imagination and makes everybody feel like a little kid and then to be able to have it on a stage like Allegiant Stadium, a brand new facility, only so many performances and competitions have been there, is such a great opportunity that you want to be able to go out there as a performer and just mark it as your territory,” he said

It’s not common for the WWE to hold events on Saturday. Sunday night has been the traditional pay-per-view slot to go along with regular Monday and Friday night television programming.

Khan remembers what Saturday nights were like in Las Vegas on big fight weekends, particularly in the heyday of the heavyweight division when the entire city would be electric when Mike Tyson or Evander Holyfield or George Foreman or Riddick Bowe would step into the ring.That baton was passed to the UFC, which now holds its biggest events on Saturday nights in Las Vegas.

“From our point of view, this is a Saturday night city,” Khan said.

The significance isn’t lost on the athletes.

“That template of the big Saturday night fight night in Las Vegas that’s been laid before us, it’s right up our alley to come in and do it bigger and better than anyone else,” Reigns said.

It could also be a bridge to more major WWE events in Las Vegas, a market that hasn’t traditionally been a grand slam for the organization. Khan believes a big part of that is people aren’t as inclined to get fired up to hit Las Vegas on a Sunday or Monday night.

“There’s no human in the history of humankind that has said, ‘Let’s go to Las Vegas and go crazy on a Monday night for ‘Raw,’” he joked.

Ticket sales suggest the move to Saturday night will work out better. Khan said with the modifications the WWE makes to a stadium for production, there were originally 45,000 seats available. They cleared nearly 3,000 more last week to meet demand and expect to be sold out at a time tourism is starting to rebound.

“It’s huge for WWE, the superstars, the fans, everybody, to have such a big event after such a long time,” said former champion Drew McIntyre, whose real name is Andrew Galloway. “Almost 50,000 people will be there. They tell me about the stadium and how big it is and how much money went into it and how awesome it is to be there live. I’m so excited to be a part of the first wrestling show for sure and one of the first things there at all.”

The WWE has not slowed down throughout the pandemic, figuring out ways to broadcast from a closed set with virtual fans.

Now they are back to a more familiar format. Khan has pointed to this event as a sort of relaunch of normalcy.

“We just thought Las Vegas was ready for a big event, and we thought we could be one of the first big sports events here,” he said. “Personally, and on behalf of the company, whatever we could do to help re-stimulate the economy was important to us.

“It’s our biggest one in a long time. We’re excited. Our superstars are excited. I hope our fans are as well.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.