Well, here we go again. Another think piece where I have to badmouth World Wrestling Entertainment. 

First and foremost, I want to get all of the unbiased information out of the way so that my point makes sense by the end. This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that you can run sports in Florida as long as you are a national TV-esque production and you run with no fans in attendance. This means, hypothetically, that companies such as Ultimate Fighting Championship, WWE and even All Elite Wrestling, which airs on TNT, could tape live television every week without consequence. Combat sports have been named “essential” in Florida. However, there is a difference between these three companies. In AEW, they taped until May, before strict quarantine guidelines were put into place, and there is a large degree of trust between the locker room and head booker and owner Tony Khan. In AEW, they have put health and safety before business. The same cannot be said of UFC or WWE. 

Let’s start with UFC. Dana White is an absolute madman. He has been looking to buy a goddamn private island to produce UFC events since these quarantine guidelines began. What were you planning on doing, you maniac? Flying people in to fight and putting them at risk for pay-per-view buys? Luckily, he seems to have sagged off a bit on that, but with the new rules, there’s no guarantee he won’t go back to doing the exact same thing in Florida. 

The WWE is a completely different story. 

Now, to their credit, I called them “evil” a few weeks ago because they hadn’t called off WrestleMania, but that same day, they started planning to pre-tape matches in an empty performance center. Could it have been done sooner? Yes, but at least it got done. But on Friday, the plan was to tape five weeks of television all in one day, when all of a sudden Vince McMahon told the talent that was no longer the case, and now they would be taping Raw, SmackDown and NXT live from here on out without fans. You’re gonna make all your stars fly in every single week for live tapings? It’s scripted violence. I think it can wait. 

But it’s worse than that. Vince McMahon has told people they can stay at home, without repercussions, if they don’t feel safe. Nobody is going to follow this; there have been numerous times where somebody had their push derailed for no reason whatsoever. If you stay home, I can virtually guarantee you will lose everything unless your name is Roman Reigns, who is staying home as he is a cancer survivor. Speaking of survivors, Jerry Lawler, who had a heart attack live on Raw in 2012, has been flown out to do commentary on shows. It’s one thing to invite someone on the older side to work your shows, but to invite a 70-year-old man with a history of heart attacks is downright criminal. The flagship show, Monday Night Raw, had the lowest rating in its history during its third hour, which drew 1.6 million people. These empty arena shows are not worth people’s times. It’s time for a break, not to make this show essential. This is also the company who has this on its website,and none of this has even mentioned the fact Linda McMahon is a member of the Trump administration that has power to wield when it comes to this kind of thing. 

In the end, this is nothing new for WWE. We’ve seen how they’ve reacted to situations like Saudi Arabia. Honestly, this is more on Ron DeSantis than anything. It just goes to show that whether it’s a businessman, a governor or even the president of the United States, a global crisis doesn’t stop assholes from being assholes.