RAW and SmackDown! tapings in jeopardy?
 

From F4Wonline.com:

The Raw crew is set to finish its tour tonight in Belfast and then fly back to New York for Raw at the Izod Center. Whether, due to most airports in Europe being grounded, that will be possible has become a big question. The Miz just twittered saying it isn't looking good. Belfast was considered the best place to get out of, based on wind activity in Northern Europe.

The plan was for the crew to charter a flight from Belfast after today's show, but the airports in Northern Ireland have been shut down.

The Smackdown crew is in even worse shape. They have been on a bus trying to get to a place in Europe to fly back home. Chris Jericho twittered that it has been 36 hours since any of them have seen a bed and with no end in sight, joking that these past few days have taken years off his career, and he's looking at doing his retirement match on Monday night against MacGruber. He said the bus was about to break down. They were en route to Spain, but the airport they were looking at taking off from is apparently closed.

No specific decison has been made regarding the taping of Monday and Tuesday's show (scheduled for the Mohegan Sun Casino) at this point.

Edit:
From PWInsider:

The Miz responded to a fan question asking whether he'd get back to the United States in time for Raw at the IZOD Center in New Jersey via his twitter account, commenting, "Not lookin good. Of everything to stop us a volcano really? time will tell.." Miz later responded that he thought he would be stranded in Europe.

The Associated Press featured an article on the volcanic activity in the area has caused problems for the entertainment industry with a WWE spokesperson commenting that they were planning to charter a plane back to the States if possible, as opposed to flying commercial, as they usually do while traveling. Dave Scherer reported that earlier today.

lol Jericho

Now I guess, if they can't make it back for RAW, they'll either have to move the tapings to somewhere in Europe or do some kind of a recap show.

If it's the latter, TNA had better thank the Volcanic Gods and put on a hell of a show.

From PWInsider:


The Miz responded to a fan question asking whether he'd get back to the United States in time for Raw at the IZOD Center in New Jersey via his twitter account, commenting, "Not lookin good. Of everything to stop us a volcano really? time will tell.." Miz later responded that he thought he would be stranded in Europe.

The Associated Press featured an article on the volcanic activity in the area has caused problems for the entertainment industry with a WWE spokesperson commenting that they were planning to charter a plane back to the States if possible, as opposed to flying commercial, as they usually do while traveling. Dave Scherer reported that earlier today.

Iceland is the sitcom buffoon of Europe

Raw will definately be on cos the roster is in Ireland and we have flights to America. All smackdown have to do is drive and ferry to Ireland so i dont see why they wont make it

<font color=goldenrod>I think it'd be interesting if they somehow COULDN'T get a flight back to the States in time for Raw or SD. I wonder if they'd hastily book a couple European arenas to shoot the shows, since it's the final week before a PPV.</font>

Vince better be looking for an open arena now...

:'( i usually shed a tear for retards

Lol, this'll be interesting.

Anything can happen in the World Wrestling Federation.

Good old Iceland

This can be the workings of only one man.

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now it makes sense

Dude, I have never seen NOR heard of the "Yetay" as Schiavone called it... Who the F*** is that and he gave it to Hogan from behind... I laughed my ass off... And when was that?? Towards the end of WCW? That looked like a sad Russo stunt...

No, that's back in the good old days of WCW.

Dammit... Funny though... Wonder if Jericho cried like he did in his dungeon days...

Yeah I got that... Who was the Yeti? :y:

Nevermind, he was nobody... Ron Reis.. Never heard of him...

i guess raw will do belfast becouse flights will be canceled for a week.

In related news, thousands of WWE fans rage about volcanoes, as they have with Congress, the WWF, and toothpaste.

What does it say about WWE fans when I have to ask if the toothpaste is sarcastic or not?

John Cena will fight a volcano on Raw.

Well, they can always take the long way home. By long I mean flying across Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, and across the U.S.

Stupid? Yes, but it's an idea. We'll find out during the weekend to see how this is gonna play out. I'm here in CT and they haven't announced anything about the MoSu show.

And win :lol:

Do you have tickets for the show, ClockShot?

Negative. I do have to run up there tuesday (my only day off). I may do an impulse buy if there's any left.

Fixed.

Do they have Bingo in Europe?

It's probably called something else. Like Mongo.

Update from PWInsider:

Ben Kerin sent word that the latest on the UK flying situation is that there won't be any restrictions lifted under Sunday at 1 PM locally.

With the majority of the Raw crew (and the Smackdown crew, for that matter) in Europe while creative, the announcers and the production crew are stateside, it appears this is going to get very much down to the wire.

Well, at least Big Dick Johnson can entertain us.

<font color=goldenrod>This would be awesome. Raw would essentially look like a house show...and since it'd be taped during local time they could always add commentary later.</font>

From PWInsider:

Mickie James tweeted that the Smackdown crew has arrived at the airport in Madrid, Spain, after a 20 hour ride. I checked online using Flights Status & Ticket Agencies sites and planes are flying out of Madrid to JFK. Also planes from Madrid are able to go to Portugal and then to Newark & LGA. Also from Portugal to Chicago then to NYC.

To add to the above, WWE is obviously aware of the situation that they are dealing with right now with the Raw talent. They have told the building in East Rutherford, NJ that they are still planning to have Raw there on Monday. It's very possible that Smackdown talents will be in the building to perform at the show if the Raw workers can't get there. I was also told that if the Raw workers can't get out of Northern Ireland that we should expect video, or maybe even satellite appearances, with the wrestlers to be interspersed into Monday's go home show.

I was actually riffing on WWE always talking down about the ECW arena.

And I was riffing on Europeans having different words for things.

Like French Fries ("Chips").

Bingo is called saucerbie squares and is played only as a blood sport in the UK.

If they SD people are going to be able to make it back before the RAW people, Why dont they just do XEROs Switch idea and do Monday Night Smackdown and tape RAW on Tuesday to air on Friday. Seems like a more obvious solution than to do a clip show(?) the week before a PPV.

dammit even volcanoes have to job to Cena?

If Earthquakes and Typhoons had to job to Hogan, then it's only fair.

WWE needs to bring some fat dude in as Volcanic Ash.

This could be the return Fred Ottman.

I was thinking this too, if the only wrestlers who will be back by Monday stateside will be SD! people, then why not do a Monday Night SmackDown! and tape the first bit of Superstars with the SD! segment, then tape NXT and RAW on Tuesday and have a Friday Night RAW. I dig the idea of a "reverse week" of programming, and it may be the only way to do things if they hope to continue the build to Extreme Rules 8 nights from now.

From the front page:
Looks like they'll either have to do a televised Monday Night SmackDown! and Friday Night RAW, or use a venue in Europe somewhere to do RAW via satellite.

This is gonna be so fucked up.

I really like the idea of Smackdown on Monday. I prefer the show anyways. But dunno if they would still use the guest hosts or not.

I would hope they would save the guest host (the cast of MacGruber this week) for RAW, as they've basically already built to their appearance with Kozlov backstage last week saying he was going to confront MacGruber and destroy him if he didn't give Kozlov what he wanted, so...yeah.

From PWInsider:

The Irish airspace is now closed to outbound traffic until 1 p.m. local time on Monday. No flights will get out before then, at the earliest.

The earliest that flights can leave the UK is 1 a.m. Monday morning and most experts think that there is no way that any flights will be able to take off at that time or the afternoon, and that is hardly a sure thing.

This means it doesn't look good for the Raw talents to get to New Jersey for tomorrow's show. I expect Smackdown wrestlers to appear on the broadcast. I also expect WWE to air vignettes featuring the stranded talents to build to Sunday's PPV. If the Raw wrestlers can get back by Tuesday night, I would expect them to possibly appear on Smackdown.

It's interesting to see how this develops, to say the least.

Well since I'm going to Smackdown, that'd be great :y:

Somehow, I'd be upset if I had tickets to SD! and wound up having to watch RAW.

this may be one of the higest rated raws in awhile, people wanting to see how they handle this.

I'm considering getting tickets. I figure, at worst, they get refunded.

At best, I get the SmackDown! crew and an awesome dark main event to make up for Bats/Cena.

Though it'll probably be full of vignettes. :-\

Well I dont expect more than 10% of the WWE audience to be aware of this frankly.

IF the RAW crew makes it they're going to be so run down it's going to affect the show either way.

Even if they make it back in time I highly doubt they'll do much outside of promos. Any word on whether Smackdown is back stateside yet?

If they haven't landed they're in the air and WILL be here if they're needed.

That's great. I'm looking forward to actually watching Raw for once. Mostly just to see how this turns out.

And Jericho just Tweeted that they landed in Newark, so yeah, they're here.

That's awesome.

Someone already said it, but I wanna say it anyway: TNA needs to take this chance to put on a hell of a show.

So true, especially if Raw winds up being just a clip show. TNA would just come off as lost if they didn't.

Indeed.

LOL.

Not likely.

It'd be great, but they don't really follow up on opportunity.

Yeah I don't actually expect it to happen.

it would be interesting if the smackdown superstars preformed on monday and the raw superstars prefrom on the tuesday tapings

How many Cena recaps of last week then?

True, but they could surprise (likely won't though given past history).

They should do vignette's with the RAW crew trying to find an airplane/ride. It'd be Epic.

First one back gets a title shot and $10,000. It'd be like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but with wrestlers.

It'd get better ratings than Raw normally does... I know I'd watch.

Looks like unless WWE can get to southern Europe, we may be in for a week of double Smackdown

With the exception of the few Raw superstars I enjoy, I would not have any complaints. :y:

I've had tickets for this show for a few months now, and I won't complain one bit about seeing the SD! roster instead. Could be really fun. Ok, I'll complain a little bit about missing Orton, but fuck it.

Orton is one of the few from Raw I enjoy, but Orton and Raw, or no Orton and Smackdown!? No brainer.

Well, regardless of what happens, one thing is definite: I WILL be holding up a TPWW at Tuesday night's Smackdown taping. I'll be sitting opposite the ring, too, five rows back and ten seats to the right, so hopefully the sign will be noticed and won't be taken away be security. (We all know how security is.)

lol....

Well, the Champ isn't here :-\

Hey that's a good thing... If he's making a volcano job for the spinner belt neither he or the belt will be on Raw tomorrow night!

Maybe on Monday night, the WWE should just show an old episode of this...

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Yes, for those of you here who might not know what this is (several of you), it was the forerunner to Monday Night Raw and it was CLASSIC.

I hope they do manage something spectacular, mind. Just not getting hyped up.

Except what if they wanted to build hype for current RAW matches at Extreme Rules? I'm also fairly certain, though not too sure, that the general direction they wanted to proceed with the Hitman telling ShoMiz that they're the best team of all time would be to have him follow up with how the Hart Dynasty IS, as they call themselves, "Better than the best", and have that set-up for a Unified Tag Team Championship match for Extreme Rules.

Exactly.

UK airspace is now shut down til 7pm UK time tomorrow, 6/7 hours before Raw starts in the US. So, they aren't getting back now - and even if they could get to Spain to fly, which I doubt as there's little space on any ferry services or the Eurotunnel, I doubt it'd be in time. As The Miz is still in Dublin, I think if this was a possibility, they'd already be back in England.

I don't think they'll even make it back for the Smackdown tapings as I doubt we'll see the restrictions in the UK lifted til later in the week.

I think they could do something with the NXT guys for Smackdown as I assume (from Wade Barrett's Twitter) that they are all back. They could play it like 'anything can happen blah blah blah' and they have to be ready to step up and have them take on the SD roster in matches. Bryan vs Swagger might be pretty cool to see. Perhaps they could even do this for Raw as well. Would give NXT some decent exposure and they could call it warm-up matches for the wrestlers left that are involved in the PPV.

Oh, I just read something about someone who didnt go on the tour, who could get the 2 full hours of RAW to himself, HHH. Im sure it is what he always wanted.

LOL that's right! I forgot that Hunter skipped the tour.

Well it's settled then. We know what to expect for Raw tomorrow. RAW.... IS..... HHH! Hell I'm fairly certain he could cut a two hour promo.

First hour: HHH tries to convince HBK to reunite DX for his mystery opponents
Second hour: DX takes on Croft and Baretta in an Iron Man Tag Team match

He'll cut a 2:01 promo then wrestle a cardboard standup of Cena for 4 minutes and win the title.

Raw Presents - An Evening With Triple H.

Join Hunter Hurst Helmsley as he talks about his favourite cheeses. With special guest appearances from Steve Blackman, Bull Buchanan and Pope Benedict XVI.

The Triple H Variety Burial Hours

Featuring Chris Jericho, Booker T, Kane and many more! Special appearances by The Ultimate Warrior, Katie Vick and Humphrey Bogart! PLUS! A special musical performance by KID ROCK!

Seriously. It'd be kinda like this:

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But with Cena.

I wonder if he'll be able to tape back his erection, or if it'll just pop out at the thought of finally being the absolute center of attention.

As long as the stand-up is not made of heavy wood and does not fall on HHH for the pinfall, I will take that!

He's definitely gonna have a hard time with that one. :lol: