Many of the wrestlers who were at Friday’s SmackDown are still stuck in Florida and likely won’t be able to fly out until Sunday. The news comes from Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, who shared an update with his subscribers on X on Saturday.
“Many of the wrestlers at Smackdown are stranded until likely Sunday.”
Alvarez did not name the wrestlers involved. If they do leave on Sunday, it will be four days before the next Road to Survivor Series: WarGames live event on Thursday in Huntsville, Alabama, and five days before next Friday’s SmackDown at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana.
SmackDown at the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise went on as planned because the roster made it to Florida before the ground stop.
The night before, WWE ran a show on the same tour at Hertz Arena in Fort Myers, also in Florida. NXT held a show in Cleveland, Ohio, on Friday night and was not affected, as the crew got to the city before flights were suspended.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) suspended all departures nationwide at 3:54 p.m. ET on Friday after a communication failure at multiple air traffic control centers. It wasn’t until 8:15 p.m. ET, four hours and 21 minutes later, that the FAA allowed flights to resume.
WWE dealt with something similar in November 2019, when most of the roster was stuck in Saudi Arabia following Crown Jewel. However, that delay happened before SmackDown in Buffalo, New York, which WWE had to put together with wrestlers who hadn’t made the trip and NXT talent.