WWE Issues New Mandate To Talent For Working Through Commercial Breaks

WWE informs its talent to once again start working through ad breaks.

by Andrew Pollard
Wwe Hq
WWE.com

Ahead of fans attending WrestleMania 37 next month, WWE has sent out an email to its roster to make a change to how things currently work on WWE programming when commercial breaks are airing.

From Ringside News, this email informed all talent to continue to work through all ad breaks. The reasoning for this was because “it keeps you warmed up, it continues the in-ring story, it is practice before with go live with fans and is a better experience for the virtual audience”.

With fans having been absent from venues for a year by this point in time, matches have often slowed down or stopped entirely when Raw, SmackDown or NXT goes to commercial. Famously, the early goings of the Empty Arena Era saw a video circulating online of Sasha Banks, Bayley, Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross bringing a tag match to a halt while an episode of SmackDown went to an ad break.

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Of course, there’s a strong argument to be made about why wrestlers would opt against taking bumps throughout a commercial break when there’s only fellow wrestlers, family members or friends in the audience.

Having spent the past year housed at the empty or ThunderDome-laced WWE Performance Center, Amway Center or Tropicana Field, WWE talents will soon be competing in front of a reported 25,000 fans per day at WrestleMania 37 this 10-11 April.

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Senior Writer
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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.