Lyman Good, the first-ever Bellator welterweight champion and a current member of the UFC roster, admitted Monday that he tested positive for the coronavirus, the first member of the roster to publicly admit it.
In an interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, the 34-year-old said he has fully recovered, recently testing negative. He said his coach and girlfriend also tested positive for the virus, but both have made full recoveries as well.
He was scheduled to fight on the recently canceled UFC 249 card, but withdrew in early-April due to the virus. He is now working with the American Red Cross to donate blood so they can test how antibodies can help fight the virus.
The New York native said he woke up feeling weak one morning, but pushed through on a planned sparring day and things declined from there. He developed a cough and had some breathing issues, but did not need hospitalization.
Good wants to resume training and get on an upcoming UFC card, but needs a full training camp to help his lungs recover to 100%.
The UFC is pushing ahead with a pay-per-view card on Saturday, May 9th, in a yet-to-be disclosed location.
A week after news broke that WWE was going to return to live taping after abandoning a plan to do multiple tapings per day, the company has changed course again and will resume a multi-day taping schedule that will cover them through July 10th.
The change was made in order to keep people traveling less while allowing the company to keep producing original shows for their partners. Last week, Florida cleared the way for WWE to resume shows at the Performance Center by deeming pro sports and WWE as essential businesses.
The following is a schedule first reported by Pro Wrestling Sheet and confirmed by WWE:
Tonight’s and next week’s SmackDown, this Monday’s Raw, and this Wednesday’s NXT will all be live as previously planned
April tapings
Saturday, April 25; May 1st and May 8th SmackDown will be taped
Monday, April 27; That night’s Raw and the May 4th Raw will be taped
Wednesday, April 29; That night’s NXT and the May 6th NXT will be taped
May tapings
Monday, May 11; That night’s Raw and the May 15th SmackDown will be taped
Tuesday, May 12; The May 18th Raw and the May 22nd SmackDown will be taped
Wednesday, May 13; That night’s NXT and the May 20th NXT will be taped
Monday, May 25; That night’s Raw and the June 1st Raw will be taped
Tuesday, May 26; The May 29th and June 5th SmackDown will be taped
Wednesday, May 27; That night’s NXT and the June 3rd NXT will be taped
June/July tapings
Monday, June 8; That night’s Raw and the June 12th SmackDown will be taped
Tuesday, June 9; The June 10th NXT will be taped
Monday, June 15; That night’s Raw and the June 19th SmackDown will be taped
Tuesday, June 16; The June 22nd Raw and the June 26th SmackDown will be taped
Wednesday, June 17; That night’s NXT and the June 24th NXT will be taped
Monday, June 29; That night’s Raw and the July 6th Raw will be taped
Tuesday, June 30; The July 3rd and July 10th SmackDown will be taped
Wednesday, July 1; That night’s NXT and the July 8th NXT will be taped
In confirming the change, WWE also released the following statement:
“We believe it is now more important than ever to provide people with a diversion from these hard times. We are producing content on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance following appropriate guidelines while taking additional precautions to ensure the health and wellness of our performers and staff. As a brand that has been woven into the fabric of society, WWE and its Superstars bring families together and deliver a sense of hope, determination and perseverance.”
PWS also reported that WWE is taking precautions like face masks, medical screenings, essential personnel only, deep cleaning and social distancing in order to better adhere to health and safety standards.
Due to the uncertain economic situation directly impacting them and other media businesses in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, WWE announced changes to their staffing, executive compensation packages, and more on Wednesday.
The news was delivered to employees on a brief, 12 PM Eastern conference call followed by the company sending out a press release. In the release, WWE said they conducted an analysis of operations over the last several weeks and identified some areas in which they will see short-term cost reductions and cash flow improvement.
Those areas: reducing executive and board member compensation; decreasing operating expenses; cutting talent expenses, third party staffing and consulting; deferring spend on the build out of the Company’s new headquarters for at least six months; and both layoffs and furloughing of a portion of their workforce immediately. That includes some of the talent roster.
Furloughing employees, a suspension in work without pay for a period if time vs. a permanent layoff, has been a constant since the economic impact of the pandemic really started hitting.
The call itself was said to last roughly five minutes with McMahon announcing several of the details above and that employees will receive texts about their standing in the company.
WWE said the changes will save them $4 million a month and give them a cash flow improvement of $140 million, mainly from the deferral in spending on their new offices. The release also said the company has approximately $500 million in cash and debt capacity to help them manage through the crisis.
McMahon suspended operations of the XFL last week and the league filed for bankruptcy on Monday. He also made the decision last Friday to return WWE to live programming vs. a taped model.
Their next investors call is set for Thursday, April 23rd. As of this writing, the stock was mainly unaffected by the news, trading at $38.01.
WWE’s Vince McMahon and the UFC’s Dana White will be among the industry leaders speaking with Donald Trump as the United States attempts to begin reopening its economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.
At a press briefing today, Trump announced that McMahon and White are included in his sports “Great American Economic Revival Industry Group.” Here’s the list of sports leaders who were announced as part of the group:
MLB – Rob Manfred
NFL – Roger Goodell
UFC – Dana White
PGA – Jay Monahan
LPGA – Mike Whan
USTA – Patrick Galbraith
MLS – Don Garber
WWE – Vince McMahon
NASCAR – Lesa Kennedy
NHL – Gary Bettman
New England Patriots – Bob Kraft
Dallas Cowboys – Jerry Jones
Dallas Mavericks – Mark Cuban
WNBA – Cathy Engelbert
NWSL – Lisa Baird
Other Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups feature leaders from the agriculture, banking, construction/labor/workforce, defense, energy, financial services, food and beverage, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, real estate, retail, tech, telecommunications, and transportation sectors. There’s also a group for thought leaders.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump announced many of the esteemed executives, economists, scholars, and industry leaders who together will form various Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups,” the White House announced in a press release. “These bipartisan groups of American leaders will work together with the White House to chart the path forward toward a future of unparalleled American prosperity. The health and wealth of America is the primary goal, and these groups will produce a more independent, self-sufficient, and resilient Nation.”
After taping shows in advance, WWE has resumed live television episodes from Orlando, Florida. Florida added “Employees at a professional sports and media production with a national audience — including any athletes, entertainers, production team, executive team, media team and any others necessary to facilitate including services supporting such production — only if the location is closed to the general public” to their list of essential services last Thursday.
White issued a statement to Variety saying the UFC plans on producing fights out of its APEX facility in Las Vegas, Nevada: “We built the APEX facility next door just in time to save the day from this pandemic. Live fights will be produced out of there starting next month and for the foreseeable future.”
In this week’s solo Big Audio Nightmare, I take you through the latest wrestling news in Japan including the state of emergency declaration and how it is affecting wrestling companies throughout the country.
From an in-ring perspective, I look at a shockingly great tag team match from one of the last shows to happen in front of a Japanese crowd, All Japan’s 60 minute empty arena match of the year candidate, NOAH’s ongoing Global Tag League, and more.
Then, we wrap things up with a look way back to the late 70s and early 80s appearances of Ric Flair in AJPW.
In a statement to ESPN Saturday, WWE addressed their return to live programming starting Monday, their first official acknowledgement of the move since the story broke Friday night.
The statement read:
“We believe it is now more important than ever to provide people with a diversion from these hard times. We are producing content on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance following appropriate guidelines while taking additional precautions to ensure the health and wellness of our performers and staff. As a brand that has been woven into the fabric of society, WWE and its Superstars bring families together and deliver a sense of hope, determination and perseverance.”
On Friday afternoon following the taping of the later scrapped SmackDown, Vince McMahon made the decision to return to live Raws, SmackDowns, and NXT shows from the Performance Center despite the coronavirus pandemic that has most of the world on some sort of quarantine and/or social distancing measures.
It’s still unclear how WWE is able to operate in Florida, a state is that only allowing essential businesses to remain operational through April 30th. The governor’s office did not reply to ESPN’s request for comment as of this time.
Conversely, the UFC was rebuked in their efforts to run a show on tribal land in Lemoore, CA, next Saturday by the governor intervening with their rights partner, ESPN via Disney.
On Saturday, it was reported and confirmed that a WWE on-screen personality tested positive for the coronavirus following the company’s last set of tapings, but has since recovered.
An on-screen WWE talent not on the in-ring roster has tested positive for COVID-19.
In a statement from WWE:
“A WWE employee has tested positive for COVID-19. We believe this matter is low risk to WWE talent and staff, as the individual and a roommate became symptomatic in the days following exposure to two people working in acute health care on the evening of March 26, after WWE’s TV production on a closed set was already complete. The employee had no contact with anyone from WWE since being exposed to those two individuals, is doing well, and made a complete recovery.”
Fightful first reported on Saturday that an employee had tested positive, referencing an internal WWE memo from last week discussing the positive test in which it lists the person’s name with their consent. From that memo: “Those of you who were potentially exposed would be cleared for travel by the evening of Thursday, April 9 at the latest, since the last possible exposure to any WWE talent personnel should have been at least 14 days prior.”
That was followed by Pro Wrestling Sheet getting the first confirmation from WWE. In their report, they said the person started feeling COVID-19 symptoms following going out to dinner with friends in the healthcare industry after the set of TV tapings that included WrestleMania. After a positive test, they went into quarantine and remain there, but are now cleared of the virus.
It’s unknown if the talent is an announcer, referee, or interviewer as they have not revealed themselves on social media or outside the memo.
It’s Wrestling Observer Radio with Dave Meltzer and Jim Valley. WWE changed plans — instead of taping episodes of Smackdown, RAW and NXT, the decision was made on the spot to produce them live or close to live as possible. Florida is supposed be closed down. Is Vince doing something that Dana White couldn’t? Dave has details of when, why and how the WWE decision happened.
Meanwhile, The Revival and WWE officially parted ways. Dave gives his thoughts on that. With the XFL suspending operations, we talk about the economics likely surrounding the situation and how it may affect other wrestling and entertainment companies. Ronda Rousey called fans ungrateful. Did she mean that and does Dave expect her at Wrestlemania next year?
We wrap up with a fun discussion on promoter Paul Boesch and Houston Wrestling. NWA Powerr uploaded classic Houston footage this week. Dave talks memories of Houston and Paul Boesch.
Timestamps:
Start: WWE going live
14:35: XFL shuts down
21:55: Revival gone from WWE
24:28: Ronda Rousey talks ungrateful fans
29:40: SmackDown
30:44: More on Dana’s private island
39:14: Advertising revenue way down and how that effects wrestling, general talk on coronavirus
59:53: What if AEW/WWE can’t tape?
1:05:59: NWA Houston
The coronavirus pandemic has affected another sports entity as the XFL announced in a Friday internal conference call that they are suspending operations and all employees have been laid off.
It’s unclear if the suspension means the fledgling football organization is done forever, but given the uncertainty of the economy in the wake of the global health crisis, that is a strong possibility with an ESPN report saying the league has no plans to return next season.
Less than a month ago, Vince McMahon’s second go-round at a football league suspended the rest of their season as did all other active and between season sports leagues. Over the past two-plus years, the WWE chairman had sold nearly $300 million in stock in order to fund the league through Alpha Entertainment, a separate LLC.
The league debuted on a variety of networks this spring (ESPN, ABC, Fox, FS1) to good ratings that dwindled over the weeks, but still remained strong. The goal was to eventually secure a traditional rights deal for guaranteed money, but with teams only managing to play just five games on their schedule, it never had the opportunity to fully realize its first season since the first iteration launched in 2001.
Our Dave Meltzer speculated on Twitter that the WWE’s recent stock price drops contributed to the decision in addition to the economy and the league’s ability to get a TV deal due to those economic uncertainties.
Despite the state canceling combat sports events through the end of May, the UFC is heading to Lemoore, California’s Tachi Palace Casino as their new home base for the next two months according to the New York Times.
The Times confirmed an initial tweet by Jeff Sherwood, the founder of Sherdog and a host on Between Rounds Radio. The UFC has yet to announce the location of April 18th’s UFC 249 pay-per-view, but Dana White said Monday they found a location to run shows at but were keeping it secret.
Neither the UFC or the casino have publicly commented on the news as of this writing. Sherwood said four shows are set to be held at the casino, closed since March 30th. It sits on ground owned by the Tachi-Yokut Tribe, making it exempt from state regulations, enabling the UFC to hold events there.
In a statement released to the Times, the California athletic commission said they are following the guidance of local government and the Association of Ringside Physicians who recommended the indefinite suspension of all combat sports events in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. They will not participate in UFC 249 or other UFC events there.
The UFC could act as their own commission or use another commission, similar to what Bellator does when they visit a country that otherwise doesn’t have one. A frequent example is the Mohegan Tribe (CT) Department of Athletic Regulations.
Longtime MMA fans will remember the Tachi Palace Fights promotion, an early cradle for future UFC, WEC, and Strikeforce fighters that ran from 2009 to 2018.
White said Monday that in addition to his secret U.S. based location, he is finalizing a deal for a secret, private island on which he will welcome international fighters to put on events. There is no announced plan for how the logistics will work given the various travel bans around the world, but White has said in recent weeks that he wishes to tell the media nothing and that fighters won’t even know where they are going.
The UFC has canceled three shows due to the pandemic and has eight shows scheduled from April 18 through June 20th.
Impact Wrestling is getting into the empty arena televised wrestling game, taping two months of programming over three days this week.
Tommy Dreamer, a wrestler, agent, and producer with the company, revealed the news on Busted Open Radio Tuesday, saying he drove 700 miles to the location which our Dave Meltzer confirmed as Nashville, Tennessee.
Meltzer is also reporting that several key talents will not be in attendance, but did not have a full list as of this writing.
On a related note, PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that there are plans to move ahead with the Rebellion pay-per-view in some form, perhaps repackaged as an AXS special or regular Impact episode instead. Johnson is also reporting two matches for the event will be announced on tonight’s Impact episode.
Like WWE in Florida, it’s unclear how Impact Wrestling is working around Tennessee’s two week “safer at home” order which began last week. Similar to Florida and other states, only businesses deemed essential are allowed to remain open.
Specifically, an executive order signed in late-March ordered the closure of places like concert venues, theaters, auditoriums, performing arts centers, and other similar facilities to members or to the public.
With UFC, WWE and AEW as being among the last events still trying to run in the U.S., the last vestiges of doing empty arena matches may have been shut down.
On 4/1, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered a 30-day stay-at-home order except for essential businesses. That would in theory eliminate the planned 4/18 UFC 249 show that was targeted for the state, and also eliminate both WWE and AEW from taping at least in April in the state.
AEW had just moved out of Jacksonville and into Norcross, GA, just outside of Atlanta, a decision made on 3/27. WWE was planning on doing Smackdown live at the Performance Center on 4/10, and now they would have to find either a new location or do studio wrap-arounds of old matches.
However that isn’t so simple either because Connecticut, where the WWE studios are, also has a stay-at-home order for non-essential businesses.
MLW’s event that was supposed to take place in Texas this May has been pushed back five months.
It was announced today that MLW’s tapings that were scheduled for the NYTEX Sports Centre in North Richland Hills, Texas on Saturday, May 2 have been rescheduled to Saturday, October 3. Tickets that had been purchased for the show will be honored on the new date.
MLW wrote that league officials “are continually monitoring the on-going coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The status to delay additional events will be decided in the weeks ahead.” Their announcement also said:
The league remains focused on a return after suspending promoting live events, however is proceeding with an abundance of caution.
MLW has considered many scenarios but is not close to rolling out a plan given that the pandemic has yet to reach its apex in the United States.
At the appropriate time, the league will communicate plans for promoting live events outside of the temporary hiatus and update the status of league events.
The MLW family would like to extend our appreciation and well wishes to all doctors, nurses, emergency services staff, first responders, medical professionals, essential services staff and all others on the front line working to address the public health crisis in our nation and around the world.
On March 15, MLW announced that their Intimidation Games tapings in Cicero, Illinois were being moved from Saturday, April 18 to Friday, June 12. MLW taped TV in Tijuana, Mexico at a show with Lucha Libre AAA on March 13.
In a decision that could affect both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts, Florida has now issued a statewide stay-at-home order.
The order goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, April 3 and will expire on April 30 unless extended by a subsequent order. Senior citizens and those with underlying medical conditions shall stay at home and take all measures to limit the risk of exposure to the coronavirus. The order also states that “all persons in Florida shall limit their movements and personal interactions outside of their home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities.”
WWE has already taped this Friday’s SmackDown, both nights of WrestleMania 36, and next Monday’s Raw. NXT also taped multiple episodes on March 22. A stay-at-home order for Orange County, Florida had already been put into effect from March 26 to April 9.
Dave Meltzer reported yesterday that AEW has moved their TV out of Daily’s Place in Jacksonville to an undisclosed location that’s believed to be in the Southeast. In that report, Meltzer wrote that it was believed AEW would be taping matches throughout yesterday and today for this week’s Dynamite and Dark as well as future shows.
Florida had also been mentioned as a potential location for UFC 249. The pay-per-view is scheduled for April 18 but doesn’t have a new location announced yet. It was originally supposed to take place in Brooklyn, New York.
The NJPW events that were scheduled to take place in Shizuoka on Sunday, April 12, Yamanashi on Monday, April 13, Fukui on Wednesday, April 15, Ishikawa on Thursday, April 16, and Kanagawa on Saturday, April 18 have been canceled. All five shows were supposed to be part of NJPW’s Road to Wrestling Dontaku tour,
NJPW wrote about the cancellations:
In response to the continuing Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, New Japan Pro-Wrestling has arrived at the decision to cancel five additional Road to Dontaku events that were scheduled between April 12 and 18. These cancellations join the cancelled Sakura Genesis event on March 31 and the first date on the Road to Dontaku tour on April 11.
We deeply apologise to fans who were looking forward to these events. Ultimately, the health and safety of our fans, wrestlers and staff, as well as society at large is our utmost concern, and we will make announcements about events scheduled after April 18 upon careful monitoring of this developing situation.
We will soon announce refund procedures for the affected events. Programs like the NJPW Together Project will continue to see wrestlers and staff come together to bring the best possible content to fans while we eagerly await the opportunity to entertain live crowds once more.
Wrestling Dontaku 2020 is scheduled to take place in Fukuoka over two nights on Sunday, May 3 and Monday, May 4.
