WWE Vengeance
WWE Vengeance, known as NXT Vengeance Day since 2021, is an American professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut. The event was originally created in 2001 as a pay-per-view (PPV), when the promotion was still called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It initially replaced Armageddon for the promotion's December PPV due to sensitivity issues following the September 11 attacks. However, Armageddon would return the following year, with Vengeance moving up to July as a replacement for Fully Loaded. Following the promotion being renamed to WWE and the implementation of  the brand extension in early 2002, the event was made exclusive to the SmackDown brand in 2003, and then Raw from 2004 to 2006 before WWE discontinued brand-exclusive pay-per-views. In 2007, Vengeance was held as , with all of WWE's championships at the time being contested. Night of Champions would replace Vengeance as a standalone chronology the following year, but Vengeance made a one-off return in October 2011. In February 2021, WWE revived Vengeance for the NXT brand as a TakeOver event called , which was the first and only Vengeance to air on the WWE Network  in addition to traditional PPV. The name was also a reference to its Valentine's Day scheduling. The TakeOver series was discontinued that September, however, Vengeance continued on under the Vengeance Day name with the 2022 event being held as a special episode of "NXT 2.0". This established Vengeance Day as NXT's annual Valentine's event. History. Vengeance was first held on December 9, 2001, replacing Armageddon as the then-World Wrestling Federation's (WWF) December pay-per-view (PPV); WWF staff felt that the "Armageddon" title was too sensitive following the September 11 attacks. However, Armageddon would return  the following year, with Vengeance moving up to July as a replacement for Fully Loaded (which had been replaced in 2001 by Invasion, the first PPV to incorporate the Invasion angle). The 2002 edition of Vengeance was the first to be promoted under the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) name, after the WWF was renamed to WWE earlier that same year. Following the brand extension in early 2002, where the promotion divided its roster into two separate brands where wrestlers exclusively performed, Vengeance became exclusive to SmackDown! in 2003, and then Raw from 2004 through 2006. WWE then discontinued brand-exclusive  pay-per-views following WrestleMania 23 in April 2007; the 2007 edition was branded as , with all nine of WWE's championships at the time being contested, which included ECW, a brand that had been established the previous year. Night of Champions would become its own chronology in 2008, replacing Vengeance in its July slot on WWE's PPV lineup. In April 2011, WWE ceased using its full name with the "WWE" abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism, while in August, the brand extension ended. That October, Vengeance made a one-off return, replacing Bragging Rights. Vengeance was again discontinued after  2011. In January 2021, over four years after the brand split was reinstated, WWE's NXT brand announced that it would revive Vengeance as an NXT TakeOver show on February 14 titled ; its title also alluded to the event's Valentine's Day scheduling. This would also be the first Vengeance to air on WWE's online streaming service, the WWE Network (which launched in February 2014), in addition to traditional PPV. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held in a bio-secure bubble called the Capitol Wrestling Center, hosted at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida . In September 2021, NXT was rebranded as NXT 2.0, returning the brand to its original function as WWE's developmental territory. The TakeOver series was also discontinued. Like WarGames, however, Vengeance Day continued on as its own event, with the 2022 event scheduled for February 15, 2022. Unlike all previous Vengeance events, however, the 2022 event will be held as a television special, airing as a special episode of "NXT 2.0". This in turn established Vengeance Day as NXT's annual Valentine's event.