The Wrestling Roundup is here to bring you all the news and rumors you need to know in one place.
COVID-19 continues to impact the sports and wrestling worlds. The NCAA, NHL, MLB, MLS, PGA and others have been impacted. Thursday had a number of announcements involving wrestling and Coronavirus as well.
WWE SmackDown Changes Location
Friday’s SmackDown will move from Detroit to WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. WWE gave an official statement to PWInsider, and also confirmed the news on Twitter. The show will also have no audience and be run with only essential personnel.
Friday Night SmackDown Proceeds With No Live Audience
Friday Night SmackDown on March 13 will air live as regularly scheduled and emanate from WWE’s training facility in Orlando, FL, with only essential personnel in attendance. The event was originally scheduled in Detroit, MI. pic.twitter.com/o9mR2SNhAj
— WWE (@WWE) March 12, 2020
AEW Dynamite Locations Changing
The locations of upcoming Dynamites are changing as well. Next week’s show, which was scheduled for Rochester, New York, is now being moved to AEW’s “home base” of Jacksonville, Florida. The show will also be broadcast on a restricted attendance policy.
https://twitter.com/AEWrestling/status/1238236202735742976
Dynamite on March 25th was scheduled to air from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. With that arena shut down by local officials, the location of that week’s Dynamite is still TBD and will also be on a restricted attendance policy.
In addition, the DYNAMITE show on March 25 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, will be relocated to a new venue, which will be announced shortly.
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) March 12, 2020
AEW has already rescheduled both shows for those locations. Rochester, New York will host Dynamite on July 8th, while Newark will have it on July 22nd.
Wrestlemania Fate In The Air
The big wrestling domino yet to fall is the fate of Wrestlemania. WWE made a statement to PWInsider in regards to potentially cancelling, rescheduling or relocating Wrestlemania that amounted to leaving it in the hands of government officials. The full statement is:
“While we remain committed to hosting WrestleMania at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday, April 5, we are putting contingency plans in place in the event that it is cancelled by government officials, civil authorities and/or local venues. The health and safety of our fans, performers and employees are our top priorities and we are monitoring the situation closely with our partners and government officials in Tampa Bay.”
More Independent Cancellations/Reschedules
This weekend’s Ring of Honor 18th Anniversary Show has been cancelled, as well as their Past Vs. Present event. The cancellations were announced by ROH on Twitter Thursday evening.
Dear ROH Family, after much consideration and consultation with local officials regarding COVID-19, ROH has decided to cancel this weekend’s 18th Anniversary (March 13th)& Past vs Present (March 14th) shows at Sam’s Town Live in Las Vegas. More on https://t.co/H9Fx1fgf5F
— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) March 12, 2020
EVOLVE Wrestling has rescheduled EVOLVE 147 & 148, moving them to May.
This weekend's #EVOLVE147 & #EVOLVE148 have been postponed to May 8th in Livonia, MI and May 9th in Chicago. All tickets will be honored for those dates.
We will have a full press release out by tomorrow as we piece everything together. We wanted to get word out ASAP. Thank you.
— EVOLVE Wrestling (@WWNEVOLVE) March 12, 2020
XFL Cancels Remainder Of Season
The inaugural season of the XFL 2.0 will end without a winner after four weeks of play. XFL announced that they will forego the remainder of the season due to the threat of Coronavirus. The league plans on returning for 2021.
XFL statementhttps://t.co/MbuHgUmzmZ pic.twitter.com/PIZLOl1fld
— XFL (@xfl2022) March 12, 2020
NXT UK Results: Finn Balor Appears
Oh yeah, some pre-taped wrestling still aired on Thursday among the chaos. Here are this week’s results for NXT UK:
- Pretty Deadly def. Dan Moloney & Dereiss Gordon
- Noam Dar def. Ligero
- Dani Luna def. Amale by disqualification
- Finn Balor def. Alexander Wolfe
One for the Road:
A great moment in the chaos of Thursday: British Bulldog will finally be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He’ll be inducted by his son, Davey Boy Smith Jr. The announcement was made on WWE’s After The Bell podcast.
BREAKING: The #BritishBulldog Davey Boy Smith will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2020. The news was first broken on @AfterTheBellWWE with @WWEGraves. #WWEHOF https://t.co/hLuNsxLcjP
— WWE (@WWE) March 12, 2020
