WWE and FOX Sports have announced a special edition of WWE Backstage on FS1.
The special episode will air during Royal Rumble Weekend on Saturday, January 30 at 8pm ET on FS1. A replay will air later that night at midnight, and another replay will air at 5pm ET on Royal Rumble Sunday, as a lead-in to the Royal Rumble Kickoff pre-show.
The special edition of WWE Backstage will be hosted by Renee Paquette (Renee Young), Paige, and WWE Hall of Famer Booker T.
WWE Backstage aired from November 2019 through mid-March of this year after production was stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. FOX Sports then announced in June that the show was no longer airing. A special post-SmackDown edition of the show was scheduled to air back on October 23, but it was nixed at the last minute and replaced with an airing of Talking Smack.
This week’s WWE 205 Live episode will see the WWE NXT Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and the NXT Women’s Dusty Classic continue with first round matches.
The men’s tournament will continue this Friday night with the final first round match. Tony Nese and Ariya Daivari will face Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher. As noted, Thatcher and Ciampa are replacing Ashante “Thee” Adonis and Desmond Troy after Karrion Kross injured Adonis during their squash match on last night’s NXT show.
The second first round match in the women’s tournament will take place on 205 Live with The Way (Candice LeRae, Indi Hartwell) vs. Gigi Dolin (Priscilla Kelly) and Cora Jade (Elayna Black). This will be the first time a women’s match has been held on 205 Live.
Dolin and Jade will team up to take on Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell in the first round, while Zoey Stark will join forces with Marina Shafir to take on Shotzi Blackheart and Ember Moon.
Gigi Dolin will already be familiar to some WWE fans as she performed in the 2018 Mae Young Classic.
WWE is set to have actual fans in attendance at Raymond James Stadium for WrestleMania 37, which will take place across two nights on April 10 and April 11 in Tampa, FL.
As seen in the video above, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon spoke with TMZ Sports this week and said the current plan is to have fans in the crowd at WrestleMania 37.
“I’m thrilled and excited because, hopefully, this will be the first opportunity for us to have our fans back in attendance,” she said of WrestleMania 37. “You know, that’s the current plan. Of course ticket information is not available yet because we’re still trying to figure out all the different machinations.
“We’re really lucky though because the NFL Super Bowl is our lead-in this year, from Raymond James Stadium. So, we’re going to learn a lot from them, logistically, etc., and really best practices, what works, what doesn’t work. But man, we can’t wait to come in and for two nights, hopefully, really rock that pirate ship.”
Stephanie later reiterated that the current plan is to have fans at Raymond James Stadium. She was asked how they determine if they go forward with that plan, and how the COVID-19 pandemic affects things.
“I mean, pretty much it really is working with the local organizing committee and all of the health professionals,” she said. “Health & safety is first and foremost, of course. You know, for our fans, for our performers, for the employees, for the staff working the building.
“There’s a lot of different logistics that need to be determined, but hopefully it’ll all work out and this will be the first WWE event where we actually bring the WWE Universe back together, in person, and I cannot wait.”
Stephanie was later asked if WWE knows how many fans they want to try and bring to Raymond James Stadium for the big event. She said they do have a plan but she wouldn’t announce it yet.
WWE Champion Drew McIntyre also confirmed that there will be a limited crowd at WrestleMania 37 during a new interview with FOX 13 in Tampa.
McIntyre talked about why WrestleMania 36 was disappointing to him as he hoped to win the WWE Title from Brock Lesnar in front of 90,000 people before the coronavirus pandemic forced the event to move to the closed-set WWE Performance Center. He then confirmed that tickets for WrestleMania 37 will be announced soon.
Tonight’s WWE NXT episode on the USA Network will see the return of the Fight Pit, plus the kick off to the first-ever NXT Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
Tonight’s WWE RAW will feature more build for the upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view.
WWE has announced that Alexa Bliss will return to action on tonight’s RAW, her first match since defeating Nikki Cross on the November 23 RAW. She will be facing the RAW Women’s Champion and one-half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions tonight – Asuka.
RAW will also see Randy Orton react to last week’s fireball attack by Bliss. WWE announced a storyline injury update last week, noting that Orton suffered minor burns to the face.
WWE has not announced any other happenings for tonight’s show, but we know that WWE Champion Drew McIntyre will not be appearing live in person due to his COVID-19 diagnosis. There’s no word on when WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg will appear again to promote the Royal Rumble match with McIntyre.
WWE has announced that the location for WrestleMania 37 has changed. The location was Los Angeles, California but now WrestleMania 37 will be at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
The Raymond James Stadium was the original location for WrestleMania 36. As noted, the location was moved to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando due to COVID-19.
The dates for WrestleMania 37 are April 10 and April 11. In the coming weeks, WWE will be announcing ticket availability and safety protocols for the event.
WWE also announced dates and locations for WrestleMania 38 and WrestleMania 39.
WrestleMania 38 will be in Arlington, Texas at AT&T Stadium on April 3, 2022.
WrestleMania 39 will be in Los Angeles, California at Sofi Stadium on April 2, 2023.
Below is the “WrestleMania Report” that WWE posted on Twitter. The video features Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, John Cena, Roman Reigns, Sasha Banks, and Paul Heyman.
WWE is reportedly planning to move the WrestleMania 37 date from March 27 to April 11.
It was noted by Fightful Select that everything is still subject to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but internally the current plan is for WrestleMania 37 to take place on April 11.
A date change was rumored several months ago, to either April 11 or April 18, but now it looks like they have decided on April 11.
The WrestleMania 37 location is also up in the air. It was revealed a few months back that WWE was possibly planning to move the event from the previously-announced location of SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles, CA area, to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL which was the originally planned location for WrestleMania 36 until the coronavirus pandemic forced that event to be held at the closed-set WWE Performance Center.
In an update on the WrestleMania 37 location, the show will not be held in California but it was noted that if the date of April 11 holds up, then WrestleMania won’t be taking place at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL or at the Amway Center in Orlando, as MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays and the NBA’s Orlando Magic will be using those venues. Raymond James Stadium is not a lock for WrestleMania 37 as of now, but the venue currently does not have any events planned for WrestleMania 37 Weekend.
WWE should be making official announcements on WrestleMania 37 Weekend soon, but as of now the internal calendars list Sunday, April 11 as date for The Grandest Stage of Them All.
The 2021 class of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame has been revealed, with Rock N’ Roll Express, Tony Atlas and more set to be inducted. The Hall of Fame announced the following names as 2021 inductees, per PWInsider:
* Pioneer Division: Mad Mountain Dean & Paul Bowser * TV Era Division: Tiger Conway Sr. & Jose Lothario * Modern Era Division: Tony Atlas & Wildfire Tommy Rich * Womens: Judy Martin & Juanita Coffman * International: Leo Burke * Executive: Don Owen * Tag Team Division: Rock ‘n Roll Express (Robert Gibson & Ricky Morton) * Territory Era: Skandor Akbar * Referee: Ronnie West
The induction weekend is currently scheduled for May 13th through the 15th and would be when both the 2020 and 2021 classes are inducted. Details on that event are still to come as they work towards a resolution for an event that is safe in the face of the pandemic.
