WWE Rumor Roundup - On-screen talent tests positive for coronavirus, Vince McMahon changes his mind, Jeff Hardy push - 11th April 2020

#4 Vince McMahon changes his mind about upcoming tapings

Despite the ongoing pandemic, Vince McMahon wants the show to go on and he is doing everything in his power to provide fans with sports entertainment content.

As reported on the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Radio, the original plan was for WWE to film five weeks' worth of content for SmackDown, RAW and NXT in the coming few days.

However, Vince McMahon made the call to go live and tape shows every week.

It was revealed that McMahon fears that pre-taped content could be perceived as a breach of contract by the TV networks who have paid big bucks for live TV.

Whether it is the right decision or not is anyone's guess, but the WWE boss doesn't want to mess with the TV deals and incur losses on that front.

Meltzer revealed the following:

Basically, it was today and tomorrow they were supposed to tape five weeks of SmackDown. Sunday and Monday, they were supposed to tape five weeks of RAW, and then Tuesday, everybody goes home. So that was the plan as of yesterday. Now, I should be saying, it was very specifically said to me that is the plan until and unless Vince changes his mind.

But it was very much up in the air. And from what I understand, you know, Vince always had the idea of going live in his mind. But when everyone went there, they did not know that. In fact, they taped a show in the afternoon and after the show was taped, then, you know, Vince changed his mind and was like, “We’re gonna do SmackDown Live tonight or as close to live as possible,” I guess is the term. I guess it was basically live, maybe, you know, whatever “close enough” is for the contract to be live.