Highspots owner Michael Bochicchio talks about WrestleCon’s future in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak forcing this year’s event to be canceled.
The event was set to take place in Tampa during WrestleMania week but after it was called off, some wondered about the future of the event in 2021 in Los Angeles. Bochicchio spoke with John Pollock of Post Wrestling and said WrestleCon had signed the contract for next year’s show in Los Angeles, where WrestleMania 37 is set to take place.
“It’s a good thing that I had already signed a contract for Los Angeles about two weeks ago because quite honestly, if I did not, I probably would have evaluated the decision to continue forward with this,” Bochicchio said.
The announcement to cancel WrestleCon came on March 16, shortly after it was announced that WrestleMania 36 would be moved from Raymond James Stadium in Tampa to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando. Prior to WWE’s announcement, Bochicchio said the best case scenario would have been to postpone WrestleCon for September and keep it in Tampa, but any time prior to that, especially in the summer, would not have been a good idea.
“I think the best case scenario would have been a postponement. We could have stayed in Tampa and we could have postponed to a later date. I completely agree with the decision WWE made. It’s very difficult considering the day-to-day changes that we’re seeing for them to plan anything in the near future. I think that the first rumor we heard was September and we were pretty excited about that because I thought that was enough time to get over the pandemic and also enough time for people to recover financially and get back out and take a vacation. September looked like a great make-up date,” Bochicchio said.
As for how the 2021 edition of WrestleCon will be affected, Bochicchio said it is too early to tell whether or not the pandemic and current economic downfall will have a ripple effect that could affect next year’s show.
“I think it’s too early to say. I think Los Angeles could be significantly impacted the longer this downturn in the economy that we’re seeing happens. I think it’s going to have a ripple effect. I think there are going to be groups on the west coast that will come in and replace the guys on the east coast that were involved this year. I don’t think much is going to change next year unless we see a longer lasting economic impact that I think anyone’s expecting right now,” Bochicchio said.
You can check out the full interview in the video at the top of the page. If you use any of the quotes at the above, please credit Fightful for the transcription.
