Orange County Sheriff Reportedly Told WWE Multiple Times To Close Down

Before they were considered “essential business” they were told not to run anymore… more than once.

We learned Monday afternoon that the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has deemed WWE an “essential business” allowing them the right to continue running shows from the WWE Performance Center with no legal issues. Yet new reports say that local law enforcement tried telling WWE multiple times they were not allowed to actual film before Monday.

According to Stephanie Coueignoux of Spectrum News 13 and Jon Alba of Spectrum Spots 360, both report that Orange County Sheriffs reported to the WWE Performance Center multiple times in both March and April telling WWE they were not in compliance the state’s stay-at-home executive order and must close down operations.

The stay-at-home order in Florida went into effect on April 3rd after WWE had already competed the WrestleMania 36 tapings, but a week before last Friday’s Smackdown taping. Yet it was reported that WWE was actually added to the “essential business” list back on April 9th, the day before last week’s Smackdown. Officers even reported the Performance Center yesterday, April 14th, regarding Monday Night RAW.

.@OrangeCoSheriff was called again yesterday (April 13) regarding the live Monday Night Raw taping, but at that point, the new Executive Order signed April 9 allowed for #WWE to operate as an essential business.

— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) April 14, 2020

WWE being considered an “essential business” was a move made by the Governor and stated that any company that would like to be considered on this list would have to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.