Wrestlemania somehow still happening in early April

The entertainment industry is currently getting slammed by the Coronavirus, with TV shows halting production, theaters getting closed down and movies being pulled from their release schedule. Even something like Black Widow, which was supposed to debut on May 1, is getting pushed back. May 1 is over a month away, but with no one certain how long the current fear will last, pushing it back seems like a prudent move.

And yet some events are going forward. Take WrestleMania, one of the biggest wrestling events of the year. That was originally going to go down on April 5, just around the corner, in Tampa, with a live audience. Well, the live audience is nixed, but the show will go on. As the WWE said on his website:

"In coordination with local partners and government officials, WrestleMania and all related events in Tampa Bay will not take place. 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."

So, first of all, this means we’ll probably see something along the lines of what we saw on last Friday’s episode of Smackdown, where wrestlers leaped and trash talked and went at each other in a completely empty auditorium. It was…very strange:

There are lots of good arguments for just cancelling the event. After all, most…uh, “real” sports have done so. March Madness is off, for example. (But not Fandom Madness — vote now!) Obviously, the WWE wants the pay-per-view money, although it’s going to lose out on a ton because no one will have bought live tickets or be there to buy concessions and so forth. Maybe it’s just better for safety if we called the whole thing off?

But there’s also the question of how long people in the entertainment industry are willing to forego work, even in the face of this crisis. A lot of shows are now on hiatus, but for only “two weeks.” That’s what Stranger Things is doing, for example. Now, I don’t think many people honestly expect for the pandemic to be over in two weeks, but if it’s possible for production companies to continue working in a limited capacity on closed sets without risk of spreading the virus, might they start doing that after a while? People may look to what happens at WrestleMania for guidance.

If it happens, that is. There’s still time to cancel.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Watch Game of Thrones for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels