WWE is doing everything they can to still put on their shows weekly despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It has now resulted in them prerecording their upcoming Monday Night Raw, Friday Night SmackDown, and NXT shows, and even WrestleMania 36.
WWE has already been putting on their Raw and SmackDown shows without an audience at their Performance Center in Orlando, and that’s expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
Future Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and even WrestleMania 36 itself will not have fans in attendance in order to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Now WWE is going one step further in order to avoid the possibility of the coronavirus pandemic stopping them from putting on WrestleMania this year, by prerecording their upcoming shows in advance.
Mike Johnson of PWInsider has reported that while the schedule could change, the two nights of WrestleMania 36 are now planned to be pre-recorded at the Performance Center.
On Saturday 21st, WWE recorded their Friday Night Smackdown episodes for March 27th and April 3rd, the next two blue brand shows before WrestleMania weekend kicks off. They also recorded two 205 Live episodes.
Today (Sunday 22nd), WWE will record NXT content for future episodes, and on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th, WWE will broadcast Raw live, as well as prerecord the red brand show for March 30th.
On Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th, the company will prerecord nights one and two of WrestleMania 36.
Johnson also added that WWE is also scheduled to tape material for WrestleMania at other 'closed sets', so there might be additional taping dates beyond what is filmed at the Performance Center.
Looks like WWE is locking down their content for the next several weeks in order to make sure the coronavirus doesn’t hamper their plans for this year’s Showcase of Immortals.
After WrestleMania 36, it’s unclear what WWE has planned for their shows, but if the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the world, the decision will be taken out of their hands.
In the meantime, WWE is doing everything they can in order to make sure their shows go on.