In April, WWE released a months-long, detailed taping schedule. This week, the company reportedly both veered from those filming plans and started planning how to resume their live event schedule.
Last month, WWE’s taping schedule from April through the beginning of July was revealed through an “exclusive” piece published on Pro Wrestling Sheet that featured several quotes from anonymous insiders about the company’s health and safety procedures. According to PW Insider, WWE broke from that schedule this week, and rather than taping just this week’s and next week’s episodes of Raw yesterday, taped this week’s Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live, and Main Event.
Another, much more obvious change from the week’s Raw will reportedly continue at future tapings. The NXT wrestlers in the audience (seen this week watching Raw from behind plexiglass while standing six feet apart and not wearing masks, said by commentary to have been medically tested before the event), are here to stay and will be used for all WWE programs going forward.
According to WrestleVotes, WWE has begun discussing internally how to resume live events (with regular fans in attendance) this summer. The WWE insider Twitter account posted, “I’m hearing that internally the WWE live event schedule is slowly being rebuilt. I’m still not expecting anything with fans prior to July, however. Discussions about ticket sales going forward have also begun, with social distancing guidelines remaining in place. That’s tricky.” Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis previously speculated that sports in the state could have limited amounts of fans in attendance in June or July.