With the shocking turn of events in the last few days in the US, wrestling is still moving forward. In American sports, it started with the NCAA forbidding fans to attend tournament games, then conference tournaments were cancelled, then the NBA suspended their season, then the MLB pushed back Opening Day, then the NHL suspended their season, then the NCAA tournament got cancelled, NASCAR cancelled the next 2 races and this hasn’t even been within the span of two full days. This is not even mentioning the fact that musical tours are cancelled, movie premieres are getting pushed back and many other avenues of entertainment are cancelled. It has been absolute chaos.

While many are wondering when and not if major wrestling promotions will cancel their weekly live TV shows, it hasn’t happened yet, so be thankful. Some of the upcoming shows for WWE and AEW have been moved to other locations and will go on without a live audience. SmackDown will be live from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, which is going to be interesting to say the least, but the show is continuing. Monday Night RAW will do the same next week, for now. AEW has announced that some of their upcoming venues have been moved and most of their upcoming shows will likely take place in Jacksonville, Florida.

While most sports are clearly not wasting any time with cancellations, pro wrestling is remaining relevant in a a bare market and that could be a miracle for AEW and WWE. With that being said, I’m anxious to see what the ratings will look like after tonight’s episode of SmackDown. Other than the news, how many live programs are being shown on TV at the moment? Not many. Wrestling can capitalize on this extra publicity and make what they want of it. Obviously, it won’t be the same without a crowd in attendance, but the fact that they are moving forward with live programming gives them an edge. That is, if they continue to do so.

WrestleMania 36 in Tampa is still a full-go at the moment and if you’re a wrestling fan, this really doesn’t surprise you a lot. The WWE and Vince McMahon have taken the phrase, “the show must go on”, to another level since its existence. While the City of Tampa and the WWE are seemingly at a standstill at this point, we all know the WWE will not budge on this. The only reason WrestleMania will be cancelled is if they’re forced to leave the venue and still, the show will go on. They’re not going to give fans a reason to give up on the product and I admire them for that.

You obviously don’t want to put fans in danger, but at the same time, we still don’t fully know what COVID-19 is capable of. We do know that it has resulted in nearly 50 deaths in the US as of now. I’m not going to pretend to know what is going on, but it does seem that the vast majority of the cases that are critical are from those people that are older or have weakened immune systems. At this point, it is obviously a serious concern, but then again, should you restructure your life around it?

While pro wrestling is still airing live, switch to FOX some time tonight, the USA Network on Monday and Wednesday night, and on TNT next Wednesday. If the show does indeed go on into next week, I guarantee that they will put on the best shows that they possibly can.

Yacs

Wrestling Hasn't Been Cancelled, For Now