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This Friday, WWE broadcasts live from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with The Greatest Royal Rumble; the show features a stacked card and will be WWE's first live broadcast from outside North America in 2018, airing starting at midday in the Eastern time zone in the United States.
WWE doesn't often broadcast live from overseas, mostly because it creates a difficult decision between airing live at awkward times (like with Greatest Royal Rumble) or pretaping and airing at their regularly scheduled time (which worked for one of the entries on this list, but became impossible in the Internet Age, as with another).
Below are six times WWE recorded outside of North America, giving fans memorable moments, sometimes at strange times of day.
#6 AJ Styles gets a Phenomenal second
AJ Styles is no stranger to competing internationally, with his phenomenal career taking him all over the world and featuring him in Japan for the start of his unparalleled second act.
In November of 2017, Styles seemed slated for a spot on Team SmackDown's Survivor Series squad but faced an abrupt and dramatic change of plans. Jinder Mahal had been the reigning WWE Champion since the spring, starting with a shocking win over Randy Orton and continuing through two wins over Shinsuke Nakamura and, most regrettably, the return of the Punjabi Prison.
Mahal himself had his Survivor Series work cut out for him, scheduled to take on Brock Lesnar in a champion vs. champion "dream" match (with nothing at stake but pride); perhaps to simply pop the live crowd, or perhaps because the company felt a Mahal-Lesnar main event would be more fizzle than sizzle, WWE called a historic audible for their November 7 SmackDown Live in Manchester, England.
Styles seemed doomed to fall to the repeated interference of the Singh brothers, as so many hapless babyfaces had throughout Mahal's run on top, before silencing the Modern Day Maharaja with a Phenomenal Forearm for the win and the championship. According to WWE's own official history, the victory made Styles' second world title win the first time a WWE world championship changed hands outside of North America.
Unfortunately, time zones and network timeslots reared their ugly heads; though the match was taped in prime time in England, the show would have begun in the early afternoon on the East Coast, which didn't fit with SmackDown's 8 p.m. airtime. WWE opted to air the UK shows on a delay, as they have with both European and Japanese television tapings, but got out in front of their own spoilers by mentioning a major title change on their own social media before the show began.
The match, though, and the moment were still phenomenal, regardless of the lack of a shock.
#5 The British Bulldog becomes the first-ever European Champion
Beginning in October of 1996, dissension began to sow its seeds in the tag team partnership of brothers-in-law Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith. The duo entered 1997 the WWF Tag Team Championships but spent as much time on television arguing and attempting to claim credit for the team's successes as they did wrestling.
The team seemed destined for a split, a storyline possibility exacerbated by a tournament held across several shows in Germany (but aired together as one edition of Monday Night RAW) to crown the first-ever World Wrestling Federation European Champion; the belt would be the first new men's heavyweight title introduced into the company since Pat Patterson's Intercontinental Championship "tournament win" in 1979.
Bulldog defeated both Mankind and Vader, whom he and Hart would face at WrestleMania 13 in a tag title defense, in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, respectively; The Slammy Award-winner, meanwhile, defeated future rival Hunter Hearst Helmsley in the opening round before claiming another win over his older brother, Bret, in the semis to advance to the championship round.
Hart and Smith put on what many considered for decades to be a lost classic; the Collections feature on the WWE Network helped the company shed new light on a match rarely seen or referenced since its airdate in February of 1997.
Condensing a series of European shows over multiple days into one broadcast would be impossible in 2018. In 1997, however, the lack of social media and Internet ubiquity worked in the Federation's favour, letting the company collect and air each tournament match at once without fear of spoilers leaking out.
Bulldog won, becoming the first (and, ultimately, longest-reigning) European Champion in WWF history; he and Owen would continue their seemingly-inevitable split (with a suggested babyface turn in the cards for Bulldog), a rift which would only be healed by The Hitman and the formation of the Hart Foundation later in the year.
#4 NXT takes over London, with a memorable debut and return
NXT TakeOver: London (December 16, 2015) was the developmental brand's second live broadcast outside of Full Sail University, and its first outside of the United States; airing live from the SSE Arena in London, the show was big on action but small on surprises, as none of its three championships changed hands in high-profile matches.
What made the show memorable, though, was the return of one of NXT's most beloved figures, in addition to some of the absolute best chanting WWE has ever seen at a live show (note to "smart" towns: great chants add to the match, like 10,000+ serenading Bayley, instead of detracting, like CM Punk or "Roman sucks" chants).
Sami Zayn's electrifying NXT run came to an abrupt halt in May of 2015 when, surprising John Cena as his opponent in a US Open Challenge, Zayn was too emphatic in his pre-match dance ritual and wrestled the match with a severely injured shoulder; it required surgery, and led to an abrupt and jarring change to Zayn's NXT Championship rematch against Kevin Owens later that month.
Zayn made his NXT return at the SSE Arena, although his win over Tye Dillinger wasn't aired as part of the TakeOver card (the following edition of NXT's weekly WWE Network series featured the dark matches from London); Zayn, deservedly, received a hero's welcome, and started a wave of momentum which would carry him through a surprise Royal Rumble entry, a berth in the WWE Intercontinental Championship ladder match at WrestleMania 32 and, best of all, the greatest NXT match (up to that point, at least) against Shinsuke Nakamura.
The show also featured another dominating Asuka performance, where she dismantled evil Emma, the lackey for Asuka's first NXT victim Dana Brooke, and some stellar superstar cosplay (like Finn Balor's Jack the Ripper entrance gear or Simon Gotch's ring robe modeled after the Fourth Doctor's signature frock coat and scarf), but Zayn's return became the event's calling card.
#3 The WWE inaugurates the UK Championship over two days
For all the accusations leveled against the company for being stuck in its ways and resistant to change, WWE has made some pretty radical changes to its presentation and roster in recent years, embracing both stars and styles fans of independent wrestling thought they would never see in a ring owned by Vince McMahon.
Featuring men well known on the global independent scene for their work with companies like Progress, Insane Championship Wrestling, Chikara, and others (many of which were shown prominently and mentioned by name, another head-scratcher for longtime watchers of WWE broadcasts), WWE created its new UK Championship title and division in January of 2017 in a two-day tournament aired live from Blackpool, England.
In over five hours of WWE Network time, WWE aired a tournament where nobody whose sports entertainment fandom consisted of solely of WWE properties could name a single competitor (at the time, this writer was guilty as charged); further, the tournament featured a wrestling style very popular in the UK and on the independent scene but seen very little on WWE television, relying on Japanese strong style-inspired strikes and extremely technical holds and maneuvers. It was a broadcast relying heavily on in-ring storytelling over character-driven moments, once an anomaly in WWE's brand of sports entertainment.
Nineteen year-old Tyler Bate won the bracket and became the first WWE United Kingdom Champion, in the process making every viewer above America's legal drinking age feel unaccomplished; the man he beat, Pete Dunne, would later challenge for the belt again in NXT's Match of the Year for 2017.
The tournament brought a new wave of technicians to WWE's developmental and cruiserweight brands, like Bate, Dunne, Trent Seven, and Mark Andrews, as well as the WWE color commentary debut of Nigel McGuinness, who has become a staple of the NXT broadcast team.
Further, day two of the broadcast showed another landmark WWE debut, that of current NXT World Champion Aleister Black, who lost to Neville in one of Black's final appearances under the name Tommy End.
That a WWE Network broadcast would feature so much great wrestling wasn't a surprise in a post-NXT world; what was surprising was that it would be staffed almost entirely by men who were not under exclusive WWE contracts. Before the tournament and after, all the men involved (including its winner) would be fixtures on the British and American independent scenes; beyond being highly entertaining, the tournament was a perfect picture of the modern WWE which acknowledges other companies and allows its stars to take other bookings (including inviting independent companies to promote matches at WrestleMania Axxess).
The tournament gets a sequel this summer and, between it and the impending British Strong Style invasion of NXT (to combat The Undisputed Era), WWE's late 20-teens British Invasion looks to create even more classic wrestling moments.
#2 Finn Balor gets his first WWE gold in Tokyo
Airing what was little more than an international house show live from Tokyo on the WWE Network, WWE presented the main roster and NXT co-branded Beast in the East with a dual main event of Finn Balor challenging Kevin Owens for the NXT Championship and, less spectacularly, John Cena and Dolph Ziggler vs. Kane and Wade Barrett, in addition to the spectacle of Brock Lesnar squashing Kofi Kingston in under three minutes.WWE really seems to be hitting its stride with its Network technology, with the aforementioned United Kingdom Championship, Network-exclusive programming like the now-defunct Talking Smack which built on its broadcast television properties, and even the return of Bruce Prichard to WWE programming, but 2015's Beast in the East broadcast was one of WWE's first forays into creative uses for its Network.
The show aired at an ungodly pre-dawn hour on Independence Day in the United States; famously, a Tough Enough competitor named Patrick Clark (whom fans know better now as Velveteen Dream) tweeted a picture of himself watching the show while his fellow competitors slept as evidence that he was more deserving of WWE glory and, while it didn't go on last, Balor-Owens was Beast in the East's true moneymaker match.
Paying tribute to Japan's championship wrestling traditions in its pre-match presentation (including streamers and extravagant bouquets of flowers presented to each man, which Owens masterfully treated with disdain to keep his heel heat), the match proved why Owens was sent to the main roster less than a half a year after making his NXT television debut.
Balor, in his demon face- and bodypaint, took the NXT Championship from The Prizefighter in the land where he'd previously achieved his greatest successes; the win kicked off an incredible NXT run for the Irish superstar, who would hold the belt until the following spring before his elevation to Monday Night RAW.
Each man's star power has ebbed and flowed somewhat in the three years since (they were the number one and two holders of the Universal Championship, with Balor relinquishing due to injury and Owens being sacrificed to the Lesnar-Goldberg storyline), but the pair owned Ryōgoku Sumo Hall that night with one of the best in-ring performances of 2015, a very strong year for wrestling action.
#1 Bret Hart and The British Bulldog tear down Wembley Stadium
Bret Hart is one of a short list of names, including Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, and AJ Styles, who are said to be able to pull a good match out of nearly any opponent; common wrestling hyperbole holds that any of those men could be booked against a broomstick and it would get three stars (six if the match were held in the Tokyo Dome).
Hart earned this legacy at SummerSlam 1992 against his brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith, as the main event of that Wembley Stadium show featured the Hitman defending his Intercontinental Championship against The British Bulldog.
Smith, reportedly, entered the show with a legitimate staph infection in his knee; in his autobiography, Hart took exception to this claim and countered that Smith was unwilling to deal with the pressure, athletic prowess, and amount of preparation such a long and high-profile match would require.
Hart's autobiography also shed light on an interesting backstory to one of the match's most famous spots; with both men lying exhausted on the mat, Hart managed to apply his signature Sharpshooter hold on the Bulldog starting with both men on their back (rather than Hart beginning from a standing position, as he usually did). Bret explains that the idea for the spot came to him while he was lying in bed, and he tested the possibility of making such a move work on the only person nearby: his then-wife Julie.
One of the best (and longest) singles matches of Smith's professional wrestling career, the contest saw 25 minutes of closely-planned action designed to highlight Bulldog's power clashing with Hart's technical prowess, while still protecting Bulldog's lack of cardio. In one of the most insanely loud pops in all of WWE's history, Smith took his first singles championship in the company by reversing a sunset flip attempt for a three-count.
An ungodly pop echoed through Wembley Stadium, one of the loudest in WWE's long history.
As successful as this match is, Hart was the only man to benefit from it in the long term. Bulldog would be gone from the company by Thanksgiving, having been caught up in a steroid scandal alongside The Ultimate Warrior at perhaps the worst time in WWE's history to be associated with such substances; Hart, meanwhile, impressed front office brass so much with his London performance (and with his stature, which suggested a lack of steroidal influence) that his rise to WWF Champion coincided with his brother-in-law's exit.
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