In recent weeks, it has become clear that we’re not going to have the “normal” carefree summer we thought we might have had back in January. Spring is but days away and we’ve already seen a massive change to human behavior across the globe, outside my office window where I’d usually see hundreds of people bustling about, I’ve seen mere handfuls in the last few days. New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo is taking an unprecedented step in closing all 500+ public events statewide, and thus broadway. Following that many other states are following suit.

Early last week we were gearing up for small events to continue, by Thursday evening and Friday morning, every sports league suspended itself or canceled this month’s events. Most entertainment gatherings have postponed themselves, among others. On Thursday, the Tampa Bay mayor Jane Castor and city officials held a meeting to discuss large scale public events in the city. Surprisingly, Castor had been fairly apprehensive of canceling “the show of shows” which tends to bring the host city a large amount of revenue each year. Recently causing speculation as to both party’s motivation to hold off canceling the event.

In the emergency meeting, the group of officials voted to hold another meeting in several days (this coming Thursday) to discuss any last moment cancellations or resolutions. It is now Tuesday morning on the 17th when this is published and as WWE’s Monday night programming began, the announcement was made by WWE’s own site and social media. The event will continue as planned, however, without the city of Tampa, crowds, or nonessential staff.

“In coordination with local partners and government officials, WrestleMania and all related events in Tampa Bay will not take place,” WWE said in the brief statement. They continued with “However, WrestleMania will still stream live on Sunday, April 5 at 7 pm ET on WWE Network and be available on pay-per-view. Only essential personnel will be on the closed set at WWE’s training facility in Orlando, Florida to produce WrestleMania.” It’s not the first show that will emanate from the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, since previously, WWE announced that Orlando will be the home of foreseeable shows while the world deals with Covid-19.

Wednesday night before all major events were canceled, WWE hosted its live NXT show with a crowd at the Performance Center, to great success. Holding off on pulling the trigger until Thursday night, they then went ahead with a live broadcast of SmackDown Live on FOX, with it being one of the best episodes of SmackDown in months. The recently “demoted” Paul “Triple H” Levesque sat in on commentary and had fun doing so. Then last night, as the news broke of the venue change for the “Showcase of the immortals,” WWE’s RAW went ahead once again without a crowd and select crew on hand.

WrestleMania weekend is not just important for WWE, as its grand circus-like atmosphere was set to bring fifty promotions and one-off shows to the Tampa area. Almost every event over the weekend is either canceled or in contract disputes, such as WrestleCon and the Marriott. However, Effy’s Big Gay Brunch, and other shows, are still selling tickets for their shows that week. Nevertheless, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson enquired with WWE as to their extra events around ‘Mania. WWE provided Mike with the following statement, “The WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony and NXT TakeOver will not take place as previously scheduled.“

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