This past Monday’s WWE RAW show in North Little Rock, Arkansas featured WWE using a different stage and lighting setup for the broadcast of their show. The stage used for RAW resembled the type of smaller stage and lighting rig that WWE uses for their house show events.
WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque recently stated on Twitter that WWE’s original plans for that night’s RAW show had to be completely redesigned on less than a day’s notice due to travel and weather-related issued. Levesque praised WWE’s talent and staff for their contributions for helping make the show be possible.
I can’t say enough about the amazing job our talent, crew and staff did these last few days.
— Triple H (@TripleH) January 16, 2024
Through winter storms, blizzards and incredibly tough travel, they did what needed to be done to put on a show for the @WWEUniverse… which included completely redesigning #WWERaw on… pic.twitter.com/230BRGE6Md
Among those affected by travel-related issues for the show was Johnny Gargano who detailed on Twitter the hectic travel issues DIY, Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell experienced in order to arrive on time for this past Monday’s show.
The past 24 hours have been a wild ride for our travel crew/family! For the love of the game, baby! #WWERaw@CandiceLeRae @CiampaWWE @indi_hartwell pic.twitter.com/IXOZOI6S93
— Johnny Gargano (@JohnnyGargano) January 16, 2024
PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported many other talents also dealt with serious flight and travel related issues due to a good portion of the United States currently dealing with winter weather issues this week. Several talents reportedly were not able to fly in for this past Monday’s show while others were stranded at airports and had to drive to the show instead. Johnson reported that this was still a serious issue on Tuesday morning with many talent having flight-related issues trying to get home from North Little Rock. Several other talents reportedly drove to other cities after this past Monday’s RAW show hoping they would have a better chance of getting back home by not going to the North Little Rock or Hot Springs airports.
In a separate report, Mike Johnson reported that besides weather-related travel issues, another reason why WWE went with a smaller house show style production setup for this past Monday’s show was due to safety issues involving host venue The Simmons Bank Arena. Johnson reported that his sources stated that the venue was not structured in a way that could support WWE’s current lighting rigs for their shows due to safety concerns over the amount of snow sitting atop the roof. This reportedly prevented WWE from being able to hang their usual lighting rigs from the ceiling and caused them to utilize a lighting truss that was supported by towers erected from the ground up instead. This same issue reportedly was also the reason for the smaller stage and pyro setups for the show.