Blizzard causes WWE to tell talent to travel early for SmackDown

This week's episode of SmackDown will be WWE's last show for 2022, and the company is asking the talent to travel early to the show's location in light of a recent blizzard.

A massive winter storm has halted life in parts of the US and Canada. With snow covering the roads and temperatures falling below -30 Celsius, any wrestlers stuck in the areas affected by the storm will find it extremely difficult to travel anywhere.

This week's episode of the blue brand (December 30) is lining up to be an eventful one, mainly because of the show's main event. John Cena will wrestle his first match since SummerSlam 2021. He will team up with Kevin Owens to take on The Bloodline's Sami Zayn and Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns in a tag match.

3 days until @JohnCena’s #SmackDown return!

📺 Friday, 8e/7c on @FOXTV https://t.co/HwuEtZjb9v

On a recent episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez reported that the Stamford-based promotion has already told its talent to travel to Tampa for Friday Night SmackDown. This is to avoid any complications related to the ongoing snowstorm.

Apart from the main event featuring John Cena and Roman Reigns, the show will also see Sheamus take on Solo Sikoa and Raquel Rodriguez challenge for Ronda Rousey's SmackDown Women's Championship.

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Why was there no live WWE RAW this week?

Regular viewers of WWE RAW might have been surprised that there was no live episode of the show this week. Instead, the December 26 episode of the show was just a "Best of 2022" compilation.

This week's episode of the red brand fell on the day after Christmas. While the promotion historically has either worked on holidays or filmed the festive episodes earlier, it seems none of that was done for RAW this week.

While last week's episode of SmackDown (December 23) was filmed beforehand, the same did not happen for RAW this week. According to Fightful Select, this was done to give an extended break to large portions of the production crew.

#WWE opted not to tape a live Boxing Day #Raw to give production staff time off. They wont tape any shows from December 20-28. Talent have broadly welcomed the move despite still having to work house shows during the festive period.

#WWERaw #SmackDown

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WWE is running house shows at this time, however. So the wrestlers are not getting extended breaks in the holiday season, although they are heavily compensated for that. House shows have light production staff working on them, with several branches having no work at all, and these are the people getting a week off for Christmas.

While WWE is not allowing all its talent to take leave and celebrate the holidays with friends and family, the majority of the people working for the company getting to do so is a good sign for the promotion's working environment.