Combat Sports v Coronavirus Round 2

We can take a deep breath for now as WWE was able to complete it's ambitious taping schedule at the Performance Center this week. While the rest of sports world is on hiatus, pro wrestling fans can count on 2 Raws, 2 NXTs, and next week's Smackdown, in addition to the Grandaddy of Em All, Wrestlemania, on both next Saturday and Sunday for the first time ever. As it stands, Friday Night Smackdown on April 10th would be the next possible live event for WWE.

The Wrestlemania card did take a couple of losses, first reported by Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Roman Reigns cautiously bowed out of his Universal Championship main event with Goldberg due to growing concern over the coronavirus. Reigns had a much publicized battle with Leukemia in 2018, and took the smart and safer route of not performing during this time. Braun Strowman is replacing the four-time WWE Champion at Mania. I wish Reigns all the best, and look forward to seeing him perform when it is safe to do so.

In addition to Roman, The Miz is out of the Smackdown Tag Team Title Ladder Match 3 way with the New Day and Usos with an unreported illness. Andrade has also been scratched from the Raw Tag Team Title match due to an injury he sustained at Raw on Monday. Meltzer has also refuted the Reddit rumors that Kevin Owens, Edge, and Asuka were off the card as well, and confirmed their matches all took place as scheduled.

Two new stipulations were added to The Showcase of the Immortals this week. The Undertaker and AJ Styles will fight in a Boneyard Brawl, and John Cena and The Fiend's match will be in the Firefly Funhouse. This is one of the few times WWE can let matchups be a little more creative by having them take place outside the arena since there isn't a live audience that would grow restless watching a screen. I'm sure WWE post-production will be able to add a lot to these particular matches since Undertaker and Cena are no longer in their prime, as full-time performers.

NXT is making the best of a bad situation as well. With the postponement of Takeover Tampa, matches that were scheduled for that event were taped to air on the NXT TV show Wednesday Nights the next two weeks. On the April 1st episode, a Triple Threat for the NXT North American Title will take place between Keith Lee, Domnik Dijakovic, and Damian Priest. Then, on the April 8th show, the Six Women #1 Contender Ladder Match and the final blowoff of the Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano feud will take place The two and a half year feud between them has been a highlight of NXT, and it is going to be interesting to see where they go from here.

AEW is taking the chance going live for Dynamite every week still with a limited roster in Daliy's Place in Jacksonville. International wrestlers, like Pac and Lucha Bros, as well as talent from California, including the Young Bucks and SCU weren't at the show this week. This past Wednesday's show was supposed to be Blood and Guts in Newark , pour out a Lil Bit of the Bubbly for me :( but instead was highlighted by a confrontation between Chris Jericho and Broken Matt Hardy. Both these guys have great comedic timing, and it was a lighthearted moment I think everyone needed. Some of the highlights were Jericho cutting a promo on Vanguard One (Hardy's drone) and Hardy saying the empty amphitheater was filled with spirits of George Washington,Martin Luther King, and Judas.

Dana White continued his battle against the media this week with some more hilarious quotes, including a must-listen interview with Barstool Sports' Bob Fox. In spite of some the controversy the media is trying to stir up, the UFC President vows to move on with April 18th's UFC 249 card, headlined by Tony and Khabib, in a move I wholeheartedly agree with.

“I’m not telling the media anything! Fuck you! Every day when I wake up, there’s a bullshit story. Or somebody doesn’t like this, somebody doesn’t like that. I don’t give a fuck what you think. On April 18th, you either wanna turn on the TV and watch this fight, or you don’t.”

"How long are we really going to stay in our houses and hide? If the coronavirus is what's going to get me, then so be it. I mean, it is what it is. Heart disease, car accidents, cancer — the list goes on and on of all these things that kill people every year. One thing is guaranteed: We're all gonna die of something. ... You can't be somebody who's gonna hide in your house." 

Dana is working on making UFC 249 the "Baddest Card Ever", including adding fights from the previous three postponed events. A potential combination of any of the below fights would be a great way for the organization to return to normalcy, as White said he plans all events after April 18th to continue as scheduled.

Khabib Nurmagomedov (c) vs Tony Ferguson
Francis Ngannou vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik
Tyron Woodley vs Colby Covington
Jessica Andrade vs Rose Namajunas
Jeremy Stephens vs Calvin Kattar
Alistair Overeem vs Walt Harris
Magomed Ankalaev vs Ion Cuțelaba
Uriah Hall vs Jacare Souza
Lyman Good vs Belal Muhammad

Lockdownmania

After what has been a crazy week in professional sports, with March Madness, NBA, NHL, MLB, and XFL being either outright cancelled or postponed, pro wrestling and MMA have tried their best to keep entertaining all of us. Vince McMahon and Dana White are two of my personal idols for their "show must go on" mentality and not being afraid to stand up to criticism. Those two qualities were tested perhaps more than ever this week.

Last Friday night's Smackdown began the era of no fans for either sport. While it hasn't been completely smooth, it's a welcome distraction from everything else going on. After three shows (NXT was a recap show), it's apparent WWE is attempting to book shows the same with the wrestlers playing to a crowd of empty seats. I felt that AEW's Dynamite on Wednesday was better since they sat a group of heels and faces on opposites sides of the ring to heckle and cheer the performers. AEW also moved their hard camera to face the entrance ramp, while WWE's production has stayed the same, showing the empty ringside seats. UFC's Fight Night on Saturday wasn't as unusual since it felt like a fight from The Ultimate Fighter. 

In a situation that is still fluid, reports are that WWE is planning to pre-tape several matches to air on Raw and Smackdown over the weekend, which I'm sure will be edited with some of their video packages hyping up Wrestlemania 36. 

Speaking of Wrestlemania, the Showcase of the Immortals, which was set to take place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on April 5th is going to be unique. Instead of holding their annual supershow in front of 80,000 screaming die hard fans, Vince McMahon made the decision to tape the show at their Performance Center in Orlando on a closed set. Not only will this be the first Mania to be held with no fans, but it will take place over the course of two nights and be pre-taped as well.

Not going to lie, my gut reaction to hearing that news was that it would be a complete clusterfuck. Raw and Smackdown matches have been tolerable at best in this situation, as crowd reaction plays a huge part in a pro wrestling match. Also, all the pomp and circumstance of Wrestlemania, the larger than life set, the over the top entrances, and who can forget pyro that put your town's shitty 4th of July to shame, won't be there this year.

However, after thinking on this a little more, it's the only logical thing WWE can do at this moment. Nobody has any clue how long it will take before things start to normalize again, especially holding a stadium event. The main event matches and storylines are set already, and I feel keeping the creative in limbo won't work either. If WWE is able to continue to hold these empty arena shows to honor their TV contracts with Fox and USA, along with the monthly network specials, getting Wrestlemania over with and chalk it up to a horrible situation is your best option.

WWE's decision to hold the show over two nights proves my thinking that WWE knows the Performance Center shows aren't great, but it's better than nothing. Watching a 7+ hour show would seem even more tedious in that regard, so spreading the event into two 3+ hour events is the best way to go.  In fact, it would've been nice to spend two nights at Metlife last year instead of being stuck in Secaucus Station at 1 AM. The postponement of the Hall of Fame and NXT Takeover also clears up more time for Network content.

The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer has reported that WWE is taping Wrestlemania this week as well, and is trying to get as creative as possible to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. They're considering going as far as taping matches at different locations with unique stipulations. Think of the Hollywood Backlot Brawl at Wrestlemania 12 with Roddy Piper and Goldust.

While no further details have come out yet, this is how a proposed card would look if they separate Raw and Smackdown matches. 

Brock Lesnar v Drew McIntyre - Raw Mens Title

Becky Lynch v Shayna Baszler - Raw Womens Title 

Charlotte Flair v Rhea Ripley - NXT Womens Title

Edge v Randy Orton

AJ Styles v The Undertaker

Seth Rollins v Kevin Owens

Goldberg v Roman Reigns - Smackdown Mens Title

Bayley v Sasha v Naomi v Dana v Lacey v Tamina - Smackdown Womens Title

The Fiend v John Cena

Elias w/Gronk v Baron Corbin

Sami Zayn v Daniel Bryan

Otis v Dolph Ziggler

Seeing the cards on paper, the Raw side looks much stronger, so I would advise against doing this. I'm curious if we will also see any of the postponed Takeover matches added to this card. Also of note, the annual Mens and Womens Battle Royals have been scrapped for social distancing guidelines. I will be back with a full preview of Wrestlemania as we get more details. 

For MMA fans, this week was more par for the course of the crazy sport we love so much. From the early days of an event moving overnight from New York to Alabama due to the state athletic commission banning the sport, to as recent as UFC 232 in 2018 having to move an event from Vegas to California on a weeks notice after Jon Jones had one of his many issues with picograms, along with plenty of hiccups in between. Dana White and the UFC brass were finally dealt a roadblock they couldn't move.

After holding Saturday's UFC Brasilia card without fans, Dana White promised fans the fights would continue until government restrictions made it impossible. Today's scheduled London show was going to be moved an Indian Reservation in the US where the Athletic Commission's won't have as much authority. They were even working on replacing London native Leon Edwards from the main event against Tyron Woodley, with Colby Covington. White also planned on holding the March 28 and April 11 shows at the UFC Apex, a personal studio inside company's Headquarters in Vegas. However, a few days after President Trump banned all gatherings of more than 10 people, making the shows impossible.

The next scheduled event, UFC 249 is headlined by the superfight between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson. UFC fans have been waiting five years for the "cursed" fight, as the matchup has been scrapped four times before due to injuries after it was announced. Dana White promises fans the event is sill on for April 18th, even if it isn't the US. White's relationship with President Trump can hopefully be enough to find a loophole for this event.

The backlash of the MMA media from those comments led to another great Dana White diatribe on Friday:

“Think about this: Go online and look at some of these people – and this isn’t a knock, this is just a fact: The weakest, wimpiest people on earth cover the biggest, baddest sport on earth. What do you expect them to say? What do you think they’re gonna say?

I have over 350 employees who work for me. Multi-billion-dollar companies are laying off all their employees right now. We haven’t laid off one person at the UFC. And every fighter that fights for me will fight three times this year. Our schedule will go on. Everybody’s gonna get paid, and we will figure this out, and we will be the first sport back on. And, uh, fuck that shit. Everything will go on.”

I completely agree with Dana. The holier than thou attitude of some MMA media members can get overbearing sometimes. These are professional cage fighters, their occupation is much more dangerous than any potential virus. I'm crossing my fingers we still have a great scrap to preview in four weeks.