After not announcing any changes to WrestleMania for weeks in spite of the growing Steve Corino
crisis, WWE are now making major alterations to their biggest show of the year every two
days. It started on Monday, when the promotion announced
WrestleMania would move from Tampa Bay’s Raymond James Stadium - with an expected capacity
of 70,000 people - to WWE’s own Performance Center in front of an empty crowd. Which WWE
will likely still announce as an attendance of 70,000 people.
And now they’ve publicly announced another huge change in these unprecedented times:
WrestleMania 36 will be broadcast on the WWE Network live over two nights - spanning Saturday
4th and Sunday 5th April. This is a historic first, and coincidentally comes the same year
New Japan did the same with their biggest show of the year, WrestleKingdom, across January
4th and 5th. The Saturday broadcast of WrestleMania all-but-confirms
NXT TakeOver: Tampa Bay will not be going ahead, which was originally scheduled for
that night. And both nights of Mania will be hosted by The Gronk. What is a The Gronk?
WWE’s own press release is still advertising a “loaded slate of matches” for the two-night
card - including Drew McIntyre vs Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship, Goldberg vs Roman
Reigns for the Blueniversal Championship, Becky Lynch defending her Raw title against
Shayna Baszler, John Cena vs The Fiend Bray Wyatt, and AJ Styles vs the Undertaker.
Those are most definitely the biggest matches on the show, which will presumably take place
alongside the already set up Charlotte Flair vs Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women’s title,
and Kevin Owens vs Seth Rollins, and the not yet officially announced Randy Orton vs Edge.
But before Card Subject to Steve Corino, WrestleMania was reportedly a 16 match, 96 hour card. We’ll
likely see half of those scrapped - like the Women’s Tag Titles match, the annual battle
royals, and mid-to-undercard feuds like Otis vs Dolph Ziggler - in favour of two shorter
broadcasts, as Vince McMahon apparently strongly disliked the empty arena setting at last Friday’s
SmackDown, which is why Monday’s Raw only had one 4 minute match on.
WWE’s announcement doesn’t just reveal WrestleMania will take place over two nights,
though. It’ll also “include multiple locations” - to which Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso
added: “Each location will be a closed set with essential personnel only.” PWInsider
has confirmed this is to avoid having lots of people “in one place at the same time
under the current restrictions” of social distancing. It’ll also allow WWE to “switch
from place to place and keep the broadcast from looking and feeling monotonous.”
And hopefully one of those locations will be famed breast restaurant chain Hooters.
After Bray jokingly challenged Cena to a Bar Fight Deathmatch at Hooters if WrestleMania
gets delayed - a tweet he’s since deleted - Cena himself has now referenced the stipulation
on his really weird Instagram, with a mocked up match graphic between the two.
Edge is also up for the empty arena setting, telling the Gorilla Position podcast:
“I’m excited of what we can do and what we can bring to the audience. Because, dude,
all bets are off. There’s no rules. It’s an entirely blank canvas... That’s a challenge
I thrive on. I like to think it’s a challenge Randy thrives on, too.”
But Orton isn’t so into it, posting a picture of WWE’s two night WrestleMania announcement
with the caption: “Well ain’t that some bulls***. #letmecounttheways”
Let’s count some of those ways! -Randy’s not on the poster, he’s angry
in kayfabe! -It sucks that Steve Corino has forced this
to happen! -That’s a terrible photoshop of putting
The Gronk on the poster! -What is a The Gronk?
-Where is The Gronk? -Why is The Gronk?
Or that it’s because Orton, and reportedly many other wrestlers backstage, are upset,
angry and confused over WWE’s Mania plans. Thank you for your Patreon support in these
tough times, Don't have a Shane Cowley, Man According to Tom Colohue, writing for Sportskeeda,
WWE emailed talent last week to return to the Performance Center as a base of operations
for the foreseeable future. Many of the roster were unable to get there, though, due to travel
issues and self-isolation - leading to “some wrestlers knowing what is being planned and
others being in the dark.” This meant when WWE announced WrestleMania
will go ahead at the Performance Center, it was “a bolt out of the blue” to many wrestlers,
leading them “equally bewildered and in some cases angry” with “a lot of frenzied
discussions, disagreements and unrest backstage after the news initially broke. Certain superstars
are said to be upset at the decision.” But don’t worry, in these tough times of
wrestling shows stopping and Steve Corino - there will always be one constant in the
world of WWE news! CM Punk return confirmed!
Talking on Cody and Jen Decker’s Swing and Mrs podcast, CM Punk gave his most teasing
answer to stepping back in a WWE ring yet: If the business was right and I had somebody
that motivated me across the ring from me, I think, might be able to get it done. Nobody
has dangled the correct carrot... As far as people that I’ve worked with before,
if there was a clean slate, if the money was right, I think a guy like Daniel Bryan, I
would go, ‘I would listen to your idea.’ If you said John Cena, I’d probably listen
to your idea. Rey Mysterio, I would listen to your idea.
For people I haven’t ever wrestled before, I think Will Ospreay, I would listen to your
idea.” So Will got in touch:
“Just an idea & because we could all use something to focus on to get us through this
hard time right now. Save January 4th & get some reps in.
Help the business move forward instead of being a “spoke on the wheel”
This might be click bait. But a Great White just bit.@CMPunk”
January 4th is the date of New Japan’s biggest show of the year WrestleKingdom.
Punk hasn’t yet replied, but he might’ve let slip how someone else has been trying
to get him to return. After tweeting: “Well that’s one way to
make sure Roman finally gets not booed and nobody chants for meeeeeeee.” - about WrestleMania
happening at the Performance Center, a fan accused Punk of begging for a return. To which
Punk replied: “I’m not the one texting begging for a
match with me at mania. Eyes LOOKING EMOJI” Who do you think Punk is referring to? Let
me know in the comments, because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE!
Now over to Luke for the AEW Dynamite review. Hope your neck’s ok buddy!
Brodie Lee is the Exalted One! Matt Hardy is in Blood & Guts! And Sammy Gueverra is
my new dream karaoke partner. This is the 18th of March, 2020 edition of AEW Dynamite…
in about 4 minutes. Like Raw and Smackdown, this week’s Dynamite
was an empty arena show. But rather than just fill time with archive material, AEW did the
exact same show they would have done had Steve Corino not gotten involved. This started with
Cody cutting a promo to hype Blood & Guts, trying to rally the Elite troops in their
war against Inner Circle. Matt Jackson and Kenny Omega joined him in the ring to address
the oddness of this empty arena show, but quickly turned back to the storyline of Matt’s
problems with Hangman Page. Page eventually came out onto the stage, and raised his glass
at the group in the ring, seemingly signifying that he was on the same page as his friends.
This was a really effective open to the show, they did address the global situation we find
ourselves in, but the segment was more about the story of The Elite vs. Inner Circle.
The other big change from other empty arena episodes of television was having other wrestlers
around ringside for the matches. MJF and Shawn Spears were placing bets, Lance Archer and
Jake Roberts were making their presence felt, Colt Cabana began a feud with Kip Sabian.
It gave the show a semblance of atmosphere, and like I said in yesterday’s news episode
about No Fans Monday, the in-ring action was so good throughout the night that it was easy
to forget that there were no fans in attendance. The good action kicked off with Best Friends
vs. Lucha Bros , with Orange Cassidy falling asleep on commentary. It wasn’t a perfect
match, with Trent botching a dive to the outside, but the action got really heated by the end
with Pentagon lowblowing Barretta and hitting the assisted package piledriver for the win.
After the match Best Friends challenged Lucha Bros to a parking lot brawl on “the next
Dynamite”. That wording is key, as Kenny Omega said at the top of the show that with
everything going on, we don’t even know if there will be an episode of Dynamite next
week. Hikaru Shida beat Kris Statlander, Riho and
Penelope Ford in a really good fatal-four-way, but it still feels like the women’s division
is directionless. The weak link in this match was Ford, but she served as a catalyst to
start that feud between Cabana and Sabian. Jon Moxley cut a decent promo - oh look the
car’s back - and Jurassic Express picked up a win over Butcher & Blade. The ending
was slightly botched, but what I did like here was that Butcher & Blade were in control,
but got distracted by MJF barking orders, who before the match paid them some extra
cash to hurt Jurassic Express. Dark Order came out for a promo before Christopher
Daniels got up from the crowd to tell them that The Exalted One isn’t real - but a
video package revealed that he is real - and it’s Brodie Lee, the former Luke Harper
in WWE. He cut a great promo with the killer line, saying Daniels isn’t the first old
man to not believe in him, but he will be the last. Lee then appeared in the ring to
lay out SCU. I’m really stoked for Lee in AEW, but I do wish it was a singles run as
we’ve seen him in groups and teams for the last few years. With that said, I am very
excited to see what he can do in All Elite Wrestling.
Lance Archer got a fabulous promo package, which saw him beat down a load of dudes in
slow-motion in a small wrestling ring in the middle of the woods while Jake Roberts watched
on from a rocking chair. This was so cool, and really effective in hyping up Lance Archer’s
in-ring debut. I loved this. And the main event was a six-man tag of Santana,
Ortiz and Jake Hager representing Inner Circle taking on Cody, Matt Jackson and Hangman Page
of The Elite - with the winning team getting the man advantage in Blood & Guts on “the
next Dynamite”. This was a brilliant story. The stakes were already high, but raised even
higher because Nick Jackson has already been written out of the match for The Elite. This
was easily the best worked match of the night, with everyone firing on all cylinders - culminating
in Matt and Hangman Page working together and even teasing hitting the Indy Taker, before
Santana rolled up Matt for the win. Inner Circle have an even bigger advantage, which
they bragged about after the match. But, Matt Jackson had one more thing to reveal
- which came in the form of VANGUARD ONE AND MATT FREAKIN’ HARDY as the fifth member
of their team in Blood & Guts. Matt Hardy is in AEW, and he is in fully Broken mode.
So that was this week’s Dynamite in about 4 minutes, vote in the poll above my head
to let me know what you thought of the show using these options on screen.
This was a packed episode of Dynamite, and a brilliant one at that. This shows that empty
arena shows can work, if you just act like it’s a normal episode of a show and not
a crux. Which WrestleMania matches have been cancelled?
Click the video on screen to find out more, and while away the hours in isolation by watching
episode 3 of No Rolls Barred over on partsFUNknown. I’ve been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.