WWE has called off WrestleMania 36 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida due to the coronavirus outbreak, but it has not cancelled, nor postponed, the event.
The company’s flagship PPV is still scheduled to take place on Sunday, April 5, but now the entire card will happen in the WWE Performance Center in Orlando with no fans, only essential personnel, in attendance. Here is WWE’s official statement:
“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.”
The other “related events” that have been called off in Tampa are the Axxess fan convention, the annual WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, SmackDown, Monday Night RAW, and NXT TakeOver: Tampa. As it stands now, all those events, except Axxess, will probably also emanate from the Performance Center, but that has not been made official yet.
WWE recently held the March 13 edition of SmackDown, which was originally supposed to happen at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, at the Performance Center. The March 16 episode of Monday Night RAW is also happening there.
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WrestleMania 36 will features Roman Reigns vs. Goldberg, John Cena vs. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt, Edge vs. Randy Orton, and Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler.
WWE’s most recent PPV, Elimination Chamber, took place on March 8 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The news comes after the NBA suspended the remainder of its current season following the news that a Utah Jazz player had tested positive for COVID-19. The following day, the NHL also paused its current season and Major League Baseball announced it would delay the start of the 2020 season by at least two weeks, in addition to suspending all Spring Training games.
WrestleMania’s cancellation is the latest in a string of high-profile event delays in response to the global coronavirus pandemic. In addition to gaming events like GDC and E3 being cancelled, the entertainment industry has responded to the coronavirus by nixing conferences and conventions like SXSW, WonderCon, and CinemaCon, while films are seeing their release dates pushed back, with upcoming Bond movie No Time to Die pushed back from April to November, Fast 9 shifting from May 22, 2020 back to April 2021, and A Quiet Place 2 delayed until an unspecified date.
Source: IGN.com WrestleMania 36 Not Cancelled, Moved to the WWE Performance Center