The WWE has announced a change to their WrestleMania Week schedule with the news that TakeOver will be moved to Friday and the Hall of Fame ceremony will take place Saturday.
The company stated that the move “better serves our fans” with the announcement taking place before tickets to either event go on sale.
By moving TakeOver, it eliminates the head-to-head battle between the WWE and Ring of Honor on Saturday night, with the latter running their biggest card ever from Madison Square Garden on Saturday, April 6th alongside New Japan Pro Wrestling. Both TakeOver and the Hall of Fame ceremony will take place from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
In 2020, this could cause a conflict as SmackDown will be airing on Friday nights on Fox and it would not make sense for the WWE to have two live events going against each other. Given it’s more a year away, there is plenty of time to figure that aspect out and you have options between TakeOver moving back to Saturday, or the idea that SmackDown could serve as a lead-in and TakeOver would begin at 10 pm Eastern in the same arena.
Those that had purchased WrestleMania travel packages for next April were alerted of this change by e-mail.