This is too perfect. It's one of those "only in Florida" things that makes you shake your head but yet have to smile over the sheer absurdity of it.
Professional wrestling is now officially an "essential business" in the state of Florida, in the middle of a global coronavirus pandemic that has us all staying at home against the COVID-19's deadly spread.
Remind us again, Mr. Dictionary: What does "essential" mean?
Absolutely necessary; extremely important.
Thank you.
So World Wrestling Entertainment, the absolutely necessary, extremely important WWE, requested and this week received an exemption from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to be counted as an essential business not restricted by the statewide stay-at-home edict.
The newest exemptions granted were for mental health and drug addiction counseling, park workers needed to care for animals and ... and ... professional wrestling!
Social distancing will no longer apply to the wrestlers slamming bodies in shows for the Orlando-based WWE. There will be no fans allowed. There will be TV cameras and pay-per-view dollars to be made.
Vince McMahon owns WWE. Vince and President Donald Trump are longtime buddies. In fact Vince's wife, Linda, chairs the pro-Trump super PAC, Americans First Action. Trump's support helped DeSantis get elected in Florida.
Hmm. A strange confluence of coincidences! And well-timed. Vince's XFL just tanked and folded. But at least the the wrestling cash spigot is back on!
DeSantis, explaining how pro wrestling is now an "essential business," said people are "champing at the bit" for new entertainment to boost morale while stuck at home.
(Speaking of champing at the bit, the governor also is still allowing horse racing to continue at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, one of only seven tracks in the United States still running, albeit with no fans).
But this isn't about politics appearing to play a part in WWE's sudden favored stats in the state.
It is more about the inconsistencies and mixed signals flying around on the matter of the coronavirus and the near total shutdown of sports in America. Is some sort of restart close at hand or might it be months and months away? Does anybody know?
DeSantis opening it up for pro wrestling also is significant because it makes Florida now the only one of 43 states with stay-home orders to have made an exception for pro sports. The Miami Heat, Miami Marlins, Florida Panthers and Inter Miami soccer won't resume play until their leagues say they can. Same with Dolphins and NFL.
But it means Florida could be a landing spot, once sports resume, for teams playing in states that still are not allowing games to resume because of the health risk. Or for a sport like UFC to find safe haven. That means Florida has sort of volunteered itself as the place for kick-starting the resumption of sports, despite the health risk.
Everything is weird. Like, it's an outrage that Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott reportedly had a party at his home ... but it's all right for wrestlers and jockeys to do their thing?
We're getting ready for a virtual, online NFL Draft as scheduled, but will there be a season? Will it be on time? With fans?
The California governor just said he does not anticipate football games being played in his state this season.
Dana White said his UFC cards will resume May 9. The PGA Tor is aiming for a June restart.
Yet Major League Soccer now says its targeted mid-May restart is "extremely unlikely."
MLB continues to investigate a plan to start its season fairly soon with all 30 teams in Arizona, sans fans. (While there may be something poetic about baseball rising in Phoenix, the plan would separate players from their families for 4 { months in a pandemic, which feels sort of inhumane).
Meanwhile the NBA and NHL also seem hellbent to continue and finish their seasons, just as the NFL, King Sport, as of now entertains no talk of a delayed season.
Wait. But didn't the Summer Olympics and Wimbledon and the British Open just postpone for an entire year?
On the same day DeSantis let pro wrestlers don their costumes again, didn't Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees say social distancing could be needed at least another year?
There is no template for what we're all going through, and therefore no uniform plan in sports for how or when or if to move forward.
The mayor of New Orleans just said that city would not host any large events until 2021. One presumes a Saints home game drawing 73,000 fans might qualify as a large event?
Trump just appointed Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as advisers on when to reopen sports.
"We have to get or sports back," Trump said Tuesday. "I'm tired of watching baseball games that are 14 years old."
Trump understandably wants to reignite the tanking economy as soon as possible. Cuban and Jones, billionaire businessmen both, undoubtedly do, too.
Which of course is why the presidents' only advisers on this should be the medical experts who know best, who put lives above all else, and who understand a premature restart that involves fans and huge crowds cold cause the virus threat to spike again.
When this has all ended to the point fans are allowed back into stadiums and arenas ... will they want to go? A recent Seton Hall University poll found 72% of Americans wouldn't feel safe back in large sports crowds without an available vaccine.
When this all ends, nobody knows.
Meantime _ thanks to the state of Florida's creatively elastic definition of "essential business" _ at least we get to watch somebody jumping from the top rope and body-slamming somebody else!
