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.