Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae had a mixed bag of a night at NXT‘s Halloween Havoc on Wednesday night. While Gargano defeated Damian Priest in a Devil’s Playground Match to become the first two-time NXT North American Champion, LeRae once again came up short at taking the NXT Women’s Championship from Io Shirai. The married couple both had assists from a hooded figure in a Ghostface mask late in their matches, handing Gargano a tombstone and carrying an unconscious LeRae up the ladder on their shoulders. Shotzi Blackheart got involved in the latter match by attacking the masked wrestler, and it was never revealed who they were.
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Given the Gargano’s recent storyline, all signs point to it being Indi Hartwell. However, Dave Meltzer pointed out on Wrestling Observer Radio after the show that Hartwell reportedly wasn’t at the show due to being in quarantine for possible COVID-19 exposure. So while Hartwell might be the one revealed as the hooded figure, she wasn’t actually the one wearing the mask.
“The only name that I know that was booked on the show tonight that wasn’t there was Indi Hartwell,” Meltzer said (h/t WrestlingNews.co). “The person in the Scream mask that helped Candice LeRae was supposed to be Indi Hartwell and may end up being called Indi Hartwell because she never unmasked. The idea was for her to unmask as Indi Hartwell. She wasn’t there, it was somebody else under the thing. So she I know was quarantined and there may have been one other. I was told that most of the people who quarantined, but not all, were people who had not made television.”
News broke earlier this week that the WWE Performance Center was facing another COVID outbreak. Both Wrestling Observer and Fightful reported that the PC trainees took part in an in-house live event on Friday and that everyone who was present at that event has been told to quarantine for two weeks.
Last week the Orange County Department of Health listed all three of WWE’s venues in and around Orlando as possible locations for spreading COVID-19. WWE promptly released a statement on the matter.
“WWE is not open to the public, but rather operating on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance,” the statement read. “As part of on-going weekly testing protocols, Aventus Labs have administered more than 10,000 PCR tests to WWE performers, employees, production staff and crew resulting in only 1.5 percent positive cases as compared to the current national average of more than 5%. Additionally, extensive contact tracing takes place and impacted individuals are placed in 14-day quarantine and then only cleared after they test negative.”
