Filming in the WWE Performance Center created all sorts of challenges for the performers to overcome.
During the second episode of their BehindTheShow podcast, Matt Martel and Chase Parker, formerly Ever-Rise in WWE, spoke at length about the company's time in the PC at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to their duties on NXT and 205 Live, the duo was among those tasked with creating noise when an "audience" was placed behind plexiglass.
Martel and Parker revealed that a number of reshoots were done for matches, including their own. One that stood out, though, involved Otis and Baron Corbin being made to restart three times. Here is what they said:
Martel: You don’t even know. WWE got into the habit during the pandemic of literally like if something happened in a match that they didn’t like, it would literally be, ‘Alright let’s do that again. Can we do that again?’ It turned into a movie.
Parker: A movie or a TV show or what have you where it’s you can get the perfect shot now, because you’re not in front of a live audience.
Martel: So ultimately, why wouldn’t you?
Parker: I get it, but at the same time, there’s an organic-ness to wrestling not being perfect in a presentation which makes it look good. If it’s something that just goes completely off the rails, all good but it became to where it was so many things, it was just like…
Martel: There was this one night where — and I don’t wanna throw the guys under the bus, I’m not, right. But these poor guys, it was Otis and Baron Corbin and they had to redo their match like three times for specific spots and it was just you felt so bad for these guys, you know? Because whatever they were looking for, who knows, right? But it wasn’t being delivered?
Parker: It happened to us. We were doing matches on 205 [Live] and they’d stop it and then you pick it up and then you stop it again and it’s just such a weird thing to experience because A, we don’t have a crowd so you’re adrenaline isn’t there yet. So it does take a while when you get into a match finally, you get whacked a few times, like, ‘Oof. Okay, I’m awake, here we go. We’re in it, we’re in it’ but everything hurts a little bit more because there’s no adrenaline.
TheShow, as they're calling themselves, also shared that WWE would film multiple episodes of Raw, SmackDown, 205 Live, and Main Event all in one sitting. They recall those being full days that could last from eight in the morning until midnight.
Parker and Martel were released by WWE on June 25.
h/t to Andrew Thompson and POST Wrestling for the transcription.
