WWE News: Hell in a Cell PPV Date Changed to Oct. 25, More WWE Staff Gets Released
There is a new date for the WWE Hell in a Cell pay-per-view. The event, which typically takes place in October, was originally scheduled for Sunday, November 1. However, WWE has moved it up one week to Sunday, October 25, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter‘s Dave Meltzer. A possible reason for the date being moved is because WWE’s deal to lease Amway Center in Orlando for the WWE ThunderDome expires on October 30. It’s always possible that the Amway Center deal is extended, but for now that’s the end date. The October 25 date is also one day after Impact Wrestling’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view and a big UFC card with Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje as the expected main event.
The October 25 date was originally when the next WWE NXT UK Takeover was scheduled, but that’s not happening now although NXT UK tapings did resume last week. Perhaps they will have a NXT UK Takeover event before the end of the year.
By putting Hell in a Cell on October 25, it also gives WWE four weeks between Clash of Champions and Hell in a Cell along with four weeks between Hell in a Cell and Survivor Series. that is ideal in terms of building up a PPVs.
The listing of WWE Network events for the rest of 2020 looks like this.
Sunday, September 27 – Clash of Champions (Raw/Smackdown)
Sunday, October 4 – NXT Takeover
Sunday, October 25 – Hell in a Cell (Raw/Smackdown)
Sunday, November 22 – Survivor Series (Raw/Smackdown/NXT) – I’m assuming NXT will be part of it like last year.
Sunday, December 6 – NXT Takeover
Sunday, December 20 – Tables, Ladders & Chairs (Raw/Smackdown)
TJR Thoughts: I am absolutely fine with this because it’s better to have four weeks between PPV shows.
WWE RELEASES MORE STAFF
It was reported here yesterday that WWE released Hall of Famer Gerald Brisco after 36 years in the company. Brisco will turn 74 years old soon, so he’s likely slowing down in terms of work while heading towards retirement anyway. As we noted in the post, Brisco did not seem upset about it.
There were more cuts by WWE yesterday as well with PWInsider reporting that one source believed there were at least 60 WWE staffers that were released on Thursday. Several of them were furloughed back in April and told that they would be brought back in July or August. Things didn’t really change in the world, though, so they are now gone.
Some of the names released were longtime Producer Mike Rotunda (also known as Irwin R. Schyster) and Producer Sarah Stock, who you may know as Sarita in her TNA days. Lance Storm was also released as a WWE Producer because he lives in Calgary and it’s difficult for Canadians to travel into the US right now. It’s not known if any of them will be brought back in the future.
The interesting thing about Rotunda being released is that he’s been in WWE for nearly 20 years now as an agent/producer. He is also the father of WWE Superstar “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas, who still works for the company even though he’s not being used. It just shows that anybody can be gone at any time.
There are not expected to be talent releases, but we have already report on the AOP tag team being released earlier in the month.
A lot of the releases lead to anger among the fans with good reason because WWE is a very profitable company and they don’t necessarily “need” to release people during a pandemic. However, due to the lack of live events, they obviously feel the need to remove some people since if you aren’t doing more than TV tapings then you need less staff around.
Analysis: It’s easy to see why fans get mad at WWE for releasing people, but if you think about it from WWE’s perspective, if you have no live events scheduled for the foreseeable future then why do you need all of that staff that were a part of putting on those shows? It sucks that people are losing their job when WWE is such a profitable company, but that’s the business they are in too.