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Having even a handful of folks in the seats reacting is at least a little less weird than a completely empty crowd.

IIRC one of the AWA videos on the network has a hilariously green-screened audience.

Not to mention Raw opened with the 3 announcers shoulder-to-shoulder in the ring, almost seemed like an implied "fuck you" to all the talk about social distancing.

Knowing that Vince will be paying those two seven figures to wrestle in front of empty chairs at the PC will make it all worthwhile. It will be interesting for them to explain to shareholders that they couldn't just delay it a couple of months.

I suppose doing this way was the best possible way to punish all the indy groups who had the gall to run on WM weekend, since they're all on the hook for losses considering the city didn't shut Mania down.

Wow, that's going to be weird for sure. I suppose Tampa couldn't guarantee that the stadium would be available for any dates in the future (the NFL will start back up at some point and the Buccaneers would have priority), but yeah this seems like the oddest choice possible.

In the last week, my company has gone from "we're monitoring the situation", to "we're sending home everyone not an outside tech, in store rep, and call center worker (which is what my job is)", to "we're probably going to send as many call center people home as possible, but we'll pay you more if you're willing to still come in to the office". I'm lucky to have as much time in with the company as I do so that I have tons of vacation time available to be able to stay at home and not lose pay. Hopefully they make the call soon that I can work from home so I don't have to spend it all, but it's heartbreaking to think of the folks who don't have that luxury.4 Until shit gets settled, lets all just try to enjoy our new era of weird no audience rasslin.

Wrestlemania is 100% not happening as scheduled, Vince just is waiting for Tampa to make the call so he doesn't have to lose any money. I'd assume the talent was told already and that's why no one's been making any statements about working the show.

I certainly hope so, but the 1918 Spanish Flu went down in the summer and came back with a vengeance in the fall/winter. I would hope this time around medical science will have a cure or vaccine by then.There's doctors in Canada and here at the University of Pittsburgh that reportedly have made strides in coming up with something, so fingers crossed.

A lot of wrestlers live in Florida for tax purposes, so they could probably still do shows in the PC for the foreseeable future.

So Dave mentioned on the show him and Garrett did (which is a must listen since they had a doctor on talking about actual disease info), that if we get to the point where there's nothing much to talk about with all the wrestling companies shutting down he'd focus on more historical stories in the Observer.

Having more build for Mania matches might turn out to be a good thing since it won't be the usual 3 week WWE rush job.

This show feels like we're sitting with Hunter in his office watching the live feed of the PC.

Pretty much all the folks promoting indy shows on Mania weekend have come out saying if they make the choice to cancel on their own it will be instant financial ruin, making it sound like there's some kind of safety net in place if it's mandated by a government agency.

Too bad really, this version of the XFL was actually run pretty decently and was producing some entertaining games. It was like the football version of a higher tier indy. You weren't getting the star power of the big leagues but it was still pretty fun to watch.

Getting popped wasn't beyond his control, but WWE deciding to punish a top guy certainly would have been, since they rarely do it unless it's the result of a public arrest.

According to the news, dummies from your government who were exposed to the virus met (and shook hands) with dummies from our government, so there's all sorts of hilarity is sure to ensue from that I'm sure. As far as Goldberg/Roman, WM is absolutely going to happen even if it gets delayed from the original date. I don't think it will be too much of a momentum breaker when the rest of the world came to a screeching halt as well.

WWE un-re-cancelled Smackdown from Detroit and will have it from the PC, which is something they should have just left alone yesterday when the local TV news reported it. They're really going to end up exposing their entire ass with this ordeal, which is both surprising yet entirely not at all surprising for these folks.

AEW announced they won't be holding next week's show in Rochester. I suppose they'll probably do something in that building next to the Jag's stadium. WWE is putting themselves on an island as the only major sports and/or entertainment org not making an announcement, and playing chicken with the city of Tampa is amazingly dumb even by their standards.

So despite the local news reporting this, WWE is claiming the show is still on and the PC is just their backup plan if things get worse. You've got billion dollar sports entities either playing in front of empty seats or taking a time out until things calm down, it's going to be some real bad optics if the rasslin' keeps on keeping on in all of those.

WWE announced Smackdown will take place a the PC instead of Detroit this week.

They may have to, three teams that share facilities with teams that play in the NHL had games against the Jazz (who had a player test positive today).

So...uh, the NBA just suspended their season after one of the players tested positive for coronavirus. Mania's toast now, it's a matter of time.

So I assume Mox replaces Nick Jackson in Blood & Guts to tie those storylines together.

Butcher, Blade, and MJF just saved Luchasaurus from cracking his head off the floor on that dive just now.