Bengaluru, March 17: Coronavirus turned out to be the biggest bump in WWE’s history as they have now been forced to call off the extravaganza on April 5th.

As per the official announcement by WWE, Wrestlemania 36 will now air live from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. WWE head honchos were getting pushed by Tampa officials for the cancellation and they have finally decided to 'pull the plug.’

The 36th edition of WWE’s 'showcase of immortals’ will no longer take place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

And the event will still be streamed, live on the WWE Network and pay-per-view on Sunday, April 5 at 7 pm ET. But there will be no fans in attendance. "Only essential personnel" are allowed on the set which will be a closed-door affair.

WWE has been using the same policy to tape the weekly programming of Monday Night RAW and Friday Night SmackDown at the PC. So they couldn’t think of a better idea to have the safest route at culminating the ongoing storylines via Wrestlemania in a unique way. Here’s what the official statement reads,

“In coordination with local partners and government officials, WrestleMania and all related events in Tampa Bay will not take place. However, WrestleMania will still stream live on Sunday, April 5 at 7 pm ET on WWE Network and be available on pay-per-view. Only essential personnel will be on the closed set at WWE's training facility in Orlando, Florida to produce WrestleMania.”



Another statement given by WWE confirmed that the other two big Wrestlemania weekend programs were also withdrawn from Tampa due to the COVID-19 outbreak. WWE NXT "Takeover: Tampa Bay" (April 4) and the 2020 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony (April 2) won’t be taking place at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, per schedule.





The unfortunate rescheduling of Wrestlemania 36 has also caused WrestleCon 2020 to be canceled. The show hosts announced the same on their Twitter account promising to be for WrestleMania 37 Week in the Los Angeles area. Ticket prices will be refunded to the fans within seven days.





WrestleCon, an independent fan meet-and-greet event was scheduled to run from Thursday, April 2nd through Sunday, April 5th in the Tampa area. They had several sessions lined up including the special TNA-themed show from Impact Wrestling, Joey Ryan's Penis Party, NJPW's Lion's Break Project 3, Joey Janela's Spring Break 4, Matt Hardy's Broken Tailgate Party, and more, all of which are scrapped.