Report: WWE to Pretape Several Weeks of Content this Week

As the concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic increase, and the banning of public gatherings becomes more and more restrictive, WWE has announced plans to tape several weeks of TV in advance leading into WrestleMania.

According to an initial report from POST Wrestling’s John Pollock, WWE, in response to the widespread shutdown of many events, has decided to pretape the next few episodes of WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown.

Pollock also said he heard conflicting reports on the status of WrestleMania being taped this week as well.

Pollock wrote:

"One source we spoke with indicated that they are expecting both WrestleMania shows to be taped over the next week as well. Another was unsure if that was the case."

This means that the next two editions of WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown will be taped this week, leaving only WrestleMania to produce as a live show in the next few weeks, unless WrestleMania is also taped.

While some will likely think this would mean an inferior product or show, history has shown that pretaped shows actually do not hurt the live viewership of wrestling, and in some cases, like for WCW and WWE in the 90s or the WWE in recent times with shows from Europe, have actually helped give the ratings a boost.

From a production standpoint, this makes all the sense in the world. If there are any further restrictions placed on public gatherings, WWE might not be able to produce their shows as planned, which would be a disaster, given that the majority of their yearling revenue comes from TV deals.

On a positive note, this also means that once Vince McMahon sets the scripts for the show, they can’t be changed. Everything will be pretaped, so the next 2 weeks of television might flow better than recent weeks with stories continuing well from one show to the next. I have been a proponent of doing this for a while, and even more so with the recent news.

This will allow WWE to meet their TV deals, and allow them to book a little more in the future and work backward. If all their TV was produced this way every week, we would have far fewer problems with long term storytelling, and it might increase the quality of the product because you are locked into finishing a story instead of dropping it.

Now, all we can do, is await news to see if WrestleMania will also be pretaped.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.