WWE Moving TV Shows From St. Pete To Tampa

It’s almost time to play ball for the Tampa Bay Rays, so WWE is getting the boot from The Trop.

Since the pandemic has shut down live shows for World Wrestling Entertainment, they have been filming their TV shows at the “ThunderDome.” It’s basically an arena filled with monitors showing fans watching at home. At first, WWE shot their matches at their training facility in Orlando. To have more space to work with, they moved to the Amway Center in Orlando. With NBA season beginning, in December of 2020, they moved operations to Tropicana Field. But now that baseball season is about to kick off, the WWE needs a new home and they found one in Tampa.

Amalie Arena is out since the Tampa Bay Lightning season is in full swing so Variety reports that the Yuengling Center at USF will be the new home for Monday Night Raw and other programming beginning April 12. That will be right after WWE hosts WrestleMania at Raymond James Stadium. Mania will have about 25 to 30% capacity with actual live fans instead of TV screens. Tickets went on sale last week, but even with the reduced capacity, plenty of seats still remain. It did not sell out.

As was the case with the Trop, fans will not be let in to the Yuengling Center. It’s a closed set just for WWE employees. [Source: Variety]

Some of my WWF parking lot encounters from the ’80s…

I was a huge pro wrestling fans back in the WWF days of the ’80s. I found these photos from my Kodak Disc (remember those?) photos from the parking lot behind the Cumberland County Civic Center World Wrestling Federation events.

• Miss Elizabeth

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  "Macho Man" Randy Savage was probably with her, but somehow I focused my Kodak Disc lens on Liz.

• Bret Hart

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  The Hitman!

• Owen Hart as the Blue Blazer

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  RIP Owen Hart (as The Blue Blazer)
• Owen Hart as the Blue Blazer

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  My friends and I would always wait in line at the arena box office to be the first to buy tickets so we'd get a front row seat near the wrestler entrance.

• Cowboy Bob Orton

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  Randy Orton's dad if you're a current WWE watcher!

• Bobby Heenan

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  Best manager ever. If you listen to my radio show, I'm sure you've heard the influence Bobby had on me. His one liners were epic.
• Andre The Giant

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  I never caught him in the parking lot, but seeing Andre up close was an experience.

• Matilda the British Bulldog

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  '80s wrestlers say this dog would let off the worst smelling farts!

• The Islanders

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  They both are local car salesmen now here in the Tampa area!
• Dave Hebner

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  Only real hardcore 80s wrestling fans will get the joke of this photo. Hint: Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan!

• Dino Bravo

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  With manager Frenchie Martin.

• The Magnificent Muraco

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  A sad fact about the mortality of pro wrestlers from the '80s... Don Muraco is one of the only in this gallery that is still with us.
• Iron Mike Sharpe

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  My friends and I were being our usual dork selves and wearing a tie like The Four Horsemen.

• The Duke of Dorchester Pete Doherty

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  I don't know if he was well known here in Florida, but up in the northeast, he was a local legend!

• The Bushwackers

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  Ahhh the 80s. The guy on the left is my friend Scott who went on to become "Scottie Too Hottie" in WWE in the early 2000s. That's us thinking we're being funny doing The Four Horsemen sign. We thought we were such mavericks doing this with WWF wrestlers.
• Hulk Hogan and Jim “the Anvil” Neidhart

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  This was probably the dumbest idea... but I was a dumb kid. Scott and I took a pic with Hulk Hogan with me pretending to attack Hogan from behind. This could have backfired in a big way.

WrestleMania Stars Who Started in a Warehouse On Dale Mabry

Many WWE stars you see on TV got their start right here at a little warehouse in South Tampa.

• Seth Rollins

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  He got his wrestling name from Henry Rollins. Seth is one of the biggest success stories of former FCW wrestlers who trained in Tampa. But he says in the special that he was really getting discouraged and was starting to wonder if he'd ever get the call up to the big time in WWE.

• Drew McIntyre

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  He's a WWE champ now. But not even 10 years ago, you could see him at that Dale Mabry warehouse for $5!

• Roman Reigns

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  Part of a big wrestling family, Reigns was just one of "The Shield" members who trained on Dale Mabry.
• Sheamus

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  The wrestlers say they weren''t too crazy about training in the sweltering Tampa heat. They say in the special that the trainers rarely turned the air conditioning on.

• The Bella Twins

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  They said they had it tough breaking in to wrestling as they were initially dismissed as models and not real wrestlers who could compete.

• Daniel Bryan

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  Like Rollins, he expressed frustration on how long it took to get out of Tampa and on to the main WWE roster. His patience paid off as he became a champion just a few short years later.
• Bray Wyatt

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  In the special, they talk a lot about second generation wrestlers who trained in Tampa. Wyatt is the son of '80s wrestling star "IRS" Mike Rotundo. In the FCW special, they show his early interview acting skills. He was a natural from day 1.

• Big E

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  That guy in the middle? He's a Tampa guy! Look for him and other members of New Day at Ray Jay.

• Charlotte Flair

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  Daughter of "Nature Boy" Ric Flair,she had a quite different look back in her Tampa days.
• Natalya

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  Daughter of Tampa's Jim "the Anvil" Neidhart, she tells some great stories in the special about how when they acquired the Dale Mabry gym, they were taking over a food storage warehouse and she'd often sit on boxes of canned food during wrestling practices.

• Naomi

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  More known as a product of the NXT system in Orlando, but apparently she also trained in Tampa.

• Bayley

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  Just one of the many female stars who started in Tampa. She chose the spelling "Bayley" because she's from the Bay. (San Francisco Bay though, not Tampa Bay.)
• Paige

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  Although she's no longer an active wrestler due to injuries, Paige was trained here in Tampa.

• Corey Graves

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  He's now on the WWE announce team since his wrestling career was cut short.

• Dusty Rhodes

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  Many of the wrestlers profiled about their time in Tampa remarked how much the legendary Dusty Rhodes helped them develop their wrestling characters. We lost Dusty a few years ago.