News: Florida Issuing “Stay at Home” Orders Will Likely Lead to Changes for WWE and AEW Tapings
The month of April is here and with the new month, there continue to be more announcements that will stop the wrestling business from containing as it is. The Coronavirus pandemic has forced a lot of us to stay at home because that’s the best way to stop the spread of the virus.
The state of Florida is where WWE has been taping their shows at the Performance Center and Full Sail University in Orlando for the last three weeks, but they likely won’t be able to do that this month. That’s because the Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis “will issue an executive order Wednesday instructing the state of Florida to take a pause for 30 days and stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic.” The stay at home order will begin at midnight on Wednesday, April 3 and residents will still be allowed to gout to get essential supplies like food and groceries.
That means World Wrestling Entertainment will likely be unable to tape any wrestling shows in Orlando or elsewhere in Florida. As we have reported previously, WrestleMania was taped in Orlando last week. Could they find another state to do other shows? Probably not. What made Orlando easier is that a lot of WWE superstars live in Orlando or Tampa, so they could drive there, but there are still a lot of wrestlers that had to be flown in.
It has been reported that WWE has already taped content for the April 6th episode of Raw, but they don’t have to air that.
The Twitter account @Wrestlevotes that has broken news stories in the past, chimed in today on this topic.
Rumors around the PC last week were that if the state of FL issued a Stay Home order, which happened today, WWE would reconsider taking a break post Mania. The RAW after is shot. I’ve been told if they are pausing for a while, some footage shot won’t be aired. TBD at this point.
— WrestleVotes (@WrestleVotes) April 1, 2020
I think it’s the right call to just stop after WrestleMania, which taped last week. It may be weeks or months, but it’s important to be smart about this. WWE has to think about all the wrestlers, all the people that work on the shows and so on who are a part of the company. They have families that they don’t want to get sick. You have to be smart about this.
If WWE were to air taped matches and segments on Raw, Smackdown and NXT in April and beyond then fans are going to understand because this is the world we’re living in right now. We don’t know when “normal” is going to return. Being smart and safe is the most important thing at a time like this. Television ratings have already gone down during these taped shows with no fans and they might continue to go down as long as this continues. A lot of businesses will be hurt by this.
Regarding All Elite Wrestling, they aired Dynamite and Dark episodes from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, which is owned by Tony Khan’s family. This week, they are apparently taping at an undisclosed location because Daily’s Place is used by Jacksonville officials to deal with the treatment of patients in Florida. We don’t know where they are taping, but Dave Meltzer has reported that it is somewhere in the southeast. They are expected to air Dynamite tonight with a limited roster.
There have been no official announcements from WWE or AEW about the future of their tapings. If they announce anything in the future, we will let you know.