Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: aew, AEW Dynamite, aew rampage, covid-19, COVID-19 pandemic, Daily's Place, dave meltzer, florida, omicron, wrestling, wwe, WWE Raw, wwe smackdown, WWE Thunderdome

WWE Returning To Thunderdome Because Of COVID-19 Resurgence?

As I'm sure you're aware, the COVID-19 virus has found a second wind this winter in the form of the Omicron variant and everyone is starting to see the results in our daily lives again.  We've seen record daily infection numbers, mask requirements are back, and we're now starting to see shutdowns again in the worlds of entertainment and sports.  Numerous Broadway shows have canceled performances for the rest of the year and yesterday the NHL announced they will be pausing play until after Christmas. So with sports and entertainment affected, what about the world of sports entertainment, ie WWE?  Well, we might have an answer to that.

According to Dave Meltzer on today's Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE (and AEW) is keeping an eye on the situation and if shutdowns and mandates are to occur again that would prohibit them from traveling or performing in front of crowds, they could indeed resurrect the Thunderdome in either Orlando or Tampa, Florida, while AEW would head back to Daily's Place in Jacksonville.

Quote via Ringsidenews.com:

"I think they're both going to be pretty confident that Florida will not issue any mandates under any circumstance. Obviously, AEW can go back to Jacksonville and WWE can go back to someplace in Florida. You can always do the Performance Center. The problem is that if you put RAW and SmackDown in front of 300 people again those numbers will crater. So, it's a bad situation and AEW's numbers will hurt too."

While returning to a situation where there's no live crowd is a decision both WWE and AEW would have to make based on health and safety reasons, it is a hard one to make, as it would take a financial toll on both companies that only returned to the road a few months ago.

"I don't know if they'll crater as well. They did okay numbers in Jacksonville. Obviously, if there's no other choice, then yeah we can go through that again. The ThunderDome thing, I mean they did better in the ThunderDome than the Performance Center, so I think that in that sense WWE could look at a ThunderDome again and try to take residency in a building, but it's hard because, I guess you could do the baseball stadium, because baseball isn't starting for months, so I guess they'll go to the Tampa baseball stadium and set up."

So obviously it's all speculative as to how WWE and AEW will handle the ever-evolving pandemic situation, but with how they each handled everything last year, at least we have some idea as to how they would carry on if they're left with no other choice.

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