WWE and COVID-19: More Information On The Talent Who Tested Positive

It has been an all around rough week in professional wrestling. Despite a fairly good night at WWE Backlash on Sunday evening, word began to leak that Edge suffered a torn triceps during his match at the show with Randy Orton. Then, on Tuesday, word came out that a WWE talent in developmental had tested positive for COVID-19. The week then ended with several sexual assault allegations that were made against talent from all over the industry, including WWE, AEW, Impact Wrestling, NWA, and numerous stars from the U.K.

WWE's taping schedule was changed drastically by the COVID-19 diagnosis, with tapings that were originally scheduled for Tuesday moved to Wednesday. Wednesday's tapings ended up including Main Event, 205 Live, Raw, Raw talk, NXT (which aired on Wednesday via a slight tape delay), and next week's NXT. Originally, SmackDown was to be taped on Wednesday but those plans had to be changed.

In this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer revealed more on the talent that tested positive for COVID-19. According to the report, it is a female that has been training at the Performance Center but has not been working NXT television. The report goes on to note that she has appeared in the crowd at the WWE tapings at the Performance Center, with her last appearance having occurred on June 9th.

As of now, no other positive COVID-19 tests have been reported. WWE spent Tuesday testing all of their talent that were in town following the cancellation of the television tapings that had been scheduled for that day.

The company also came under scrutiny for not having a large scale testing operation underway prior to this week. It had previously been reported that they were taking the temperature of all talent and staff members used at their tapings, as well as undertaking "other measures." Meanwhile, AEW's Tony Khan revealed that they have been testing their talent for COVID-19 for some time now.