Florida Police Investigated Monday Night Raw, Nearly Stopped Recent Shows

I guess they didn’t get the memo. I’m going to assume that you have heard of the Coronavirus by this point. It is almost the only thing anyone in the world is talking about right now and that is understandable. The disease and the efforts to fight back against it have virtually left a good chunk of the world frozen and that does not seem to be changing anytime in the near future. One place has changed that status though and WWE has been involved.

Earlier this week, the WWE got a huge break when the state of Florida designated them as an essential business, allowing them to run shows in the state. This got WWE around several laws, which made it a lot easier to do whatever they want at the moment. It was a fast move, and it turns out that it was a little more complicated than it seemed, at least in the beginning.

According to Jon Alba of Spectrum Sports 360 and Stephanie Coueignoux of MyNews13, both in Orlando, Florida, the Orange County Sheriff’s department was called several times about the WWE Performance Center violating Florida regulations. This included on April 13 for Monday Night Raw, but the company’s new status prevented the event from being shut down. It is not clear why the previous shows were not shut down in the first place.

NEW: @OrangeCoSheriff tells @StephanieCNews and I it was called several times to the #WWE PC in the last few weeks, and told the company it was not in compliance with the existing Executive Order and had to close down. April 9th's EO changed that.https://t.co/UBlu7ZDWaU

— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) April 14, 2020

.@OrangeCoSheriff telling @MyNews13 deputies responded to @WWE Performance Center in Orlando in March & April. Advised business "they were not in compliance w/Executive Order and advised them they would have to close down." @GovRonDeSantis amended order days later. @JonAlba

— Stephanie Coueignoux (@StephanieCNews) April 14, 2020

.@OrangeCoSheriff was called again yesterday (April 13) regarding the live Monday Night Raw taping, but at that point, the new Executive Order signed April 9 allowed for #WWE to operate as an essential business.

— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) April 14, 2020

This week’s show was a big deal. Check out some of the better moments from a show that was not shut down:

Opinion: This whole thing is such a mess at this point and I’m not sure how much worse it can seem. At the moment, the whole situation seems to have settled down due to the company’s new status, but there is always a chance that the status could be changed. WWE has not exactly seemed to be the most likable company in the whole thing, but at least they are still operating.

What do you think of WWE in this situation? What should they be doing? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. Thank you for reading!