Monday Night Raw has been airing without fans in attendance since the March 9 episode due to the coronavirus, but that finally changed on this week’s episode. A small group of fans, who consisted of friends of the wrestlers, were present in the crowd alongside NXT wrestlers and WWE Performance Center trainees. The show opened by showing off the increased crowd size before Randy Orton’s show-opening promo.
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PWInsider reported on Monday that some WWE officials are hoping to be out of the WWE Performance Center and back to touring in front of live audiences in August, those others have argued that’s too soon. WWE has also been forced to push its pay-per-views to inside of the Performance Center as well, and while they reportedly want SummerSlam to happen on Aug. 23 at Boston’s TD Garden as planned, Boston’s mayor has publicly denied it will happen.
I was just going to tweet this. I can confirm this report.
There are a small amount of fans in attendance for tonight’s #WWE tapings. I was told by one source some are friends of performers. https://t.co/WZGCfDhaHf
— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) June 15, 2020
Later in the show WWE released a statement confirming that a Performance Center trainee had tested positive for COVID-19.
“A developmental talent, who was last on site at WWE’s training facility on Tuesday, June 9, has tested positive for COVID-19,” WWE’s statement read. “Since that time, no other individuals that attended the facility have reported symptoms. However, out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the health and safety of the company’s performers and staff, all talent, production crew and employees on site at the training and production facilities will be tested for COVID-19 immediately. Following the test results, WWE plans to proceed with its normal television production schedule.”
Check out the results from WWE’s latest pay-per-view, Backlash, below:
- Randy Orton def. Edge
- WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre def. Bobby Lashley
- WWE Universal Championship: Braun Strowman vs. The Miz & John Morrison
- Raw Women’s Championship: Asuka vs. Nia Jax (No Contest — double countout)
- Sheamus def. Jeff Hardy
- WWE Women’s Championship: Bayley & Sasha Banks def. Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. The IIconics
- The Vikings Raiders vs. The Street Profits (No Contest)
