https://youtu.be/BLd69cGeEac
On the latest podcast of “Shooting Blanks” host and former WWE star Ryback talked about several topics in the wrestling industry, but one topic in particular was very interesting and that was the possibility of WWE cancelling WrestleMania. According to Ryback he has talked to a couple people (WWE talent) and he claims that “the talent believes that WrestleMania is possibly going to get canceled.” You can listen to the whole podcast above.
Here are some highlights:
Ryback on the possibility of WrestleMania being canceled due to the coronavirus:
They’re far enough out right now where they need to keep an eye on this, I would dare say, probably until the week before. Then they’ll have to make a call eventually. There was a case in Washington and then all of a sudden there were 11. Then they had someone who tested for it that was supposed to not go out but chose to go out and spread the disease.
I knew that was gonna happen and for all of the places to happen, it’s gonna happen in the US with the mentality that people have here. From a wrestler’s standpoint, [WrestleMania] is in Tampa and they’re gonna bring people from all over the world to this location. If I’m a wrestler – and I’m speaking from the talent as I’ve talked to a couple of people – the talent believe that WrestleMania is possibly going to get canceled.
This is a business and it will impact a lot of things but you have to protect the wrestlers at all costs. With Axxess, there should be no fan interaction. If they chose to do this, wrestlers should only have to show up to WrestleMania and if you do the Hall of Fame, you keep the talent away from the audience. You have to be really protective of the wrestlers from a business perspective if you go through with this. I have a feeling [Vince] is gonna try to go through with it no matter what. He’s gonna have to be forced to say ‘No’ if it does happen.”
Canceling interactions between wrestlers and fans:
I’ve never thought about that. It wouldn’t be a complete loss. This isn’t one of those situations where we can just reschedule WrestleMania for a week or two. This could only get worse, quite possibly. If business starts being affected like this – you’ve got the stock market – it’s not good. There’s a lot of different levels and it’s gonna affect everybody. It would be easy for me to say, ‘Oh, I hope it f**ks over Vince’ but I don’t want it to. It’s gonna impact so much more than just that… All it takes is one wrestler to get that and that s*** will spread to the entire locker room really quickly. Wrestling in full body suits [laughs].
