The Orlando Citrus Bowl will host WrestleMania 33

On Tuesday, WWE officially announced that the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Fla., will be the site of WrestleMania 33. The largest wrestling event of next year will take place on April 2, 2017, in the 74,000-plus-seat stadium.

WWE held a press conference on Tuesday that featured Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and John Cena. (The latter confirming at the press conference that he will not be competing at this year’s WrestleMania.) The conference ended with current WWE Tag Team Champions The New Day playing a little ditty for the Citrus Bowl to wrap things up.

The Citrus Bowl previously hosted WrestleMania XXIV in 2008, an event that featured both Floyd Mayweather’s match against the Big Show and Ric Flair’s retirement match against Shawn Michaels. There were complaints about the condition of the stadium after that event, but WWE’s executive vice president of live events, John Saboor, spoke to the Orlando Sentinel and said stadium renovations in the interim have addressed those concerns:

“All of us were very favorably impressed by all of the improvements made to the Citrus Bowl,” Saboor said.

He added those improvements “will provide an unprecedented experience with the WWE universe attending and the millions more watching around the world.”

This will be the third WrestleMania to take place in Florida, the most recent being WrestleMania XXVIII at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Early speculation for the WrestleMania 33 site had the new Minnesota Vikings’ stadium being the front-runner, but Orlando appears to have made the stronger bid. Mayor Buddy Dyer told the Orlando Sentinel that he hopes Central Florida will be part of a regular rotation for WrestleMania, with the event coming to the Orlando area “maybe every five years.”