WrestleMania planned for Gronk Gone
Wild.
Rob Gronkowski is set to host WWE’s
signature show. But the frivolity — and
perhaps the physicality if a wrestler dare
gets in the retired Patriots star’s face — is
now playing strictly to an audience of TV
and streaming media viewers.
For WrestleMania ticket-buying fans,
that’s as unwelcome as a steel chair to the
back.
Raymond James Stadium in Tampa,
Florida, the scheduled site of WrestleMa-
nia, closed.
While real sports have shut down
because of the coronavirus pandemic,
WWE has pressed on and continued to
produce programming three nights a week
for “Raw,” “NXT” and “Smackdown.”
The shows have featured a mix of classic
matches, interviews and even empty-arena
matches. Those thuds — like Montez Ford’s
brutal botched bump to the floor this week
on “Raw” — are heard quite clearly without
crowd noise to drown out the in-ring action.
WrestleMania has run in front of massive
crowds inside football stadiums every year
since 2007, and Sunday’s show was set to
take place at the home of the Buccaneers.
WWE stood firm that the show must go on
and largely moved a card highlighted by
stars Brock Lesnar and John Cena to its
performance center in Orlando, Florida.
WWE also spread the card for the first
time in WrestleMania over Saturday and
Sunday to make room for roughly 16
matches. WrestleMania is $29.99 for each
night on pay-per-view. and it also streams
for subscribers on the WWE Network. The
WrestleMania kickoff show airs on FS1 and
ESPN has also aired classic WrestleManias
to hype the big show.
“We just feel like it is the right time,”
WWE executive Paul “Triple H” Levesque
said. “We’re slightly different than other
sports or entertainment where you have to
travel massive groups of people to other
cities, then take those massive groups of
people and transport them to other cities.
“It’s really difficult to do, even without
fans, in a safe and effective manner. For us, it
was trying to continue to try and put on the
product and do it as safely as possible, and
we feel like we’ve been able to do that.”
Levesque said most of WrestleMania has
been taped, though there are “live compo-
nents” to the two-day show.
The card has been besieged by rumors of
major match shake-ups, notably the appar-
ent removal of top star Roman Reigns, who
disclosed in October 2018 his leukemia hadreturned. Reigns was scheduled to face Bill
Goldberg but declined on an Instagram
video to get into details of his withdrawl.
“The moment I make a choice for me and
my family, I’m a coward,” he asked.
Levesque said there were “no ramifica-
tions“ for any performer, staff or crew who
declined to participate in WrestleMania or
other events. He added no performer to his
knowledge has tested positive for the virus
and the company has adhered to social
gathering and CDC guidelines.
There’s nothing socially distanced,
though, between two men fighting in a
Boneyard Match or a Firefly Funhouse
Match, though the special attraction bouts
are two ways WWE strayed from the drab
empty arena set.
“I think a lot of these things might give us
unique opportunities in the future to do
some things at WrestleMania and beyond
that kind of change the business,” Levesque
said.
WWE announcer Jerry “The King”
Lawler called the first “Raw” without fans
on March 16 and it reminded him of his own
empty arena bout against Terry Funk in 1981.
“I can tell you from experience, even
though I knew what it was all about, and
how the match was built up, when I actually
wrestled him, I felt stupid,” Lawler said,
laughing. “But later on, when you watch it
on TV, it was good.”
Drew McIntyre won the Royal Rumble in
January at a packed Minute Maid Park in
Houston to earn a shot against Lesnar forthe WWE championship at WrestleMania
What should have been a crowning mo-
ment in front of 75,000 fans — now just
refunded tickets — could be a letdown.
“I really can’t believe WrestleMania is
happening in these times,” McIntyre said.
“It’s not how I pictured it when I was a kid,
or over the past few years or even a couple
of months ago.”
WWE, propped by billion-dollar TV
deals and lucrative deals with Saudi Arabia,
is surely shaking its head at the sudden
downturn. This week’s “Raw” sunk to a
decidedly low 1.92 million viewers, yet
enough to rank in the top five of cable
rankings for the night.
“My initial disappointment and rage
turned into, wait a minute, that’s a very
selfish way of looking at it,” McIntyre said.
“People are sitting in right now and need
something right now. WWE is providing it
to them.”
Perhaps not for long. Florida issued a
statewide stay-at-home order Wednesday
that could put WWE down for the three
count when it comes to future TV tapings.
“We can do so many different things and
really get outside the box on stuff,” Levesque
said. “If there’s a way for us to do it, we’ll
continue for as long as we possibly can.”
So strike up the theme music, ignite the
pyrotechnics and let the sounds from the sofa
serve as the soundtrack for this year’s show.
“WrestleMania won’t be the spectacle
that it would have been,” Levesque said,
“but it will be a spectacle nonetheless.”WILLY SANJUAN/INVISION/APBrock Lesnar defends his WWE Championship this weekend against Drew McIntyre.
DON FERIA/AP
John Cena will take a break from Hollywood to face “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt this weekend.CHRIS PIZZELLO/INVISION/APEven WWE feels squeeze
Biggest bad guy at this weekend’s WrestleMania 36
is the coronavirus as show will go in empty arena
By Dan Gelston
Associated Press
“For us, it was trying to continue to try and put on the product and do it as safely as possible,
and we feel like we’ve been able to do that.”
— WWE executive Paul “Triple H” LevesqueeNEWSPAPER BONUS COVERAGE