Are WWE Trying To Ban Indie Events From WrestleMania 36 Weekend?
It could be a sparse weekend of shows in Tampa, Florida...
WWE WrestleMania 36 was confirmed for Tampa Bay's Raymond James Stadium a few weeks ago, and it sounds like the promotion are already working on bringing some major changes to the weekend as a whole.
Per Mike Johnson on PW Insider's Elite audio show, WWE are currently trying to prevent independent promotions from holding shows in Tampa over WrestleMania weekend, as has become the tradition around WWE's biggest show of the year.
Johnson claims that several local sources have told him WWE are reaching out to buildings around the area. They want to forge exclusive agreements with private venues to ensure that they are the only company that'll be able to operate there, and will try to use their political pull to do the same with state-owned buildings.
From a fan's point of view, there's nothing positive about this. WrestleMania weekend has become the destination wrestling event not only for WWE's shows, but the dozens of smaller companies that head to the local area at the same time, and this move may force said promotions to hold events farther away from Tampa or cancel them outright.
Perhaps WWE need to relax a little bit: it's not like Joey Ryan's Penis Party is putting them out of business.