This morning Dave Meltzer gave some information regarding what fueled Vince McMahon’s decision making regarding having RAW, SmackDown and NXT going back to live tapings rather than going forth with doing a set of TV tapings over this past weekend.
The original plan for a schedule had four days of tapings that included five weeks worth of SmackDown, five weeks worth of RAW and then use Full Sail University to record tapings of NXT, This all was supposed to take place through this past Friday up to today. However, according to Meltzer, Vince changed course on Friday afternoon once they finished one taping, stating they’re not doing this. The concern has to do with WWE’s contract stipulations with Fox and NBC.
“The reason is the fear of being cut for violation of the contract because the contract states you’ve got to go live for 49 weeks a year out of 52,” Meltzer said. He speculates on several matters of the situation before adding the recent developing “additional layer” to the information. “The contract is the reason that they’re going live, but yes, we had a COVID positive and they’re still going more. They’re going more and not less.”
Meltzer goes on to give context to the COVID-19 diagnosis.
“It actually happened March 26. It would have been the second day of WrestleMania taping is when it happened, but in theory it happened after the taping so nobody got infected, supposedly. I mean that’s the story and it’s someone on the broadcast team and that’s the deal, yeah.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo)
