ROH And MLW Comment On If They Will Run Shows In Florida
After "professional sports and media production" was designated as an essential activity in the state...
Apr 15, 2020
On April 9, the Florida Governor's office published a memo which added "professional sports and media production" to the list of essential services in Florida. This ultimately stopped WWE from having to close the Performance Center and the company has since returned to broadcasting episodes of Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown live from the facility.
After releasing the memo, a spokesperson for Governor DeSantis said he designated WWE as an essential business "because they are critical to Florida's economy."
The memo also allows other sports and professional wrestling companies to run shows in Florida. With this in mind, John Pollock at POST Wrestling reached out to several wrestling promotions. Both Ring Of Honor and Major League Wrestling responded and said they are unwilling to risk their talent's health and will not be running any shows in the near future.
Joe Koff at ROH said: "I think it's great for WWE that they are able to operate how they see fit, or how they may even need to for their business. It doesn't necessarily change our approach to the pandemic though. The safety of all of our performers, staff, vendors, and fans are the most important thing to us right now and we are continuing to improve our infrastructure and find ways to connect with them during this time. Are we eager to get back? Absolutely. For now, we will be monitoring day by day."
Court Bauer at MLW said: "No. I will not put my athletes, crew and staff along with their families at risk of contracting the virus."
