The year 2020 is perhaps the worst one for sports – and their fans – since World War II. National sports leagues and major international tournaments were canceled or suspended all over the world, and even the Summer Olympics was affected: it was postponed to 2021. With most sports broadcasts now consisting of reruns and virtual sports, professional wrestling fans have it easy: the WWE didn’t go on lockdown.
Pro wrestling has four major events each year – the Big Four, consisting of the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Survivor Series. Royal Rumble took place as planned back in January, and although the pandemic was raging, fans had the chance to see the special moments of WrestleMania 36 on Pay-per-View in April (the event was pre-recorded in March). But there are still two of them planned for later in the year – SummerSlam 2020, and the Survivor Series. Is the pandemic going to affect them or will they proceed as the previous one – without fans, in a different location?
SummerSlam 2020
SummerSlam 2020 was scheduled to take place on August 23 at the TD Garden in Boston, Mass. Due to the pandemic, in turn, the majority of WWE programming has been moved to WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida since the middle of March – WrestleMania 36 was recorded there, too.
Boston mayor Marty Walsh suspended all major gatherings in the city until at least September 7 – this means that SummerSlam 2020 is effectively canceled. Or it will be held in a different location entirely.
According to a May 13 tweet from @WrestleVotes, WWE is looking for a new venue where the SummerSlam could be held. At the same time, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that Vince Mahon is =willing to postpone the event to September, hoping that it can be held with fans present.
Survivor Series 2020
This year’s Survivor Series (or next year’s WrestleMania 37) may see the final match of Mark William Calaway aka “The Undertaker” in his professional wrestling career. This is, in turn, just one of the many matches that makes the event worthy of our attention.
The event According to a tweet by WresleVotes published back in March, this year’s Survivor Series is scheduled to take place on November 22 in Dallas, Texas. Otherwise, there is little to know about the event so early in the year. A lot depends on the way the pandemic progresses, of course – we all hope it will go away for good until then but, according to some specialists, we may experience a second wave in the fall – and that may change the plans for this event fundamentally.
2020 was not a good year for sports – so far, that is. Let’s hope that, with the first wave of the pandemic passing, we can once again enjoy our favorite sports sitting on the grandstands.
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