During the week leading up to WrestleMania, many independent promotions hold events in the same city. Due to COVID-19, all events have been cancelled (or in WWE’s case, moved to another city). Many independent promotions and their talent are suffering.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on us in every imaginable way, including pro wrestling. While WWE WrestleMania is being pre-taped this week, nearly all other wrestling shows have been cancelled. Some companies have put on shows with no fans with money raised either by AdSense, donations, and merch sales going to the talent.

Will Ospreay and WrestleTalk put on an excellent no fans show aptly called No Fans Monday. The show featured Ospreay facing his “missus” Bea Priestley. David Starr, The O.J.M.O., Callum Newman and others also performed. The show raised over £10,000.

Freelance Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Tees were going to host a no fans show on March 22 called “In Your Warehouse”, a play on WWE’s old “In Your House” pay-per-view. WWE Superstar Mustafa Ali tweeted that he donated money to the performers.

Freelance also tweeted that Ruby Riott had made a generous donation. In a true Mr. Scrooge moment, WWE turned around and sent them a cease and desist due to the show’s name. The show was renamed “Warehouse Wars”, but was cancelled after the Illinois Governor put a shelter-in-place in effect.

Independent wrestling won’t face this pandemic on its own. @FreelanceWres and @PWTees present #WarehouseWars this Saturday March 21st at 7:00pm CST. This no fans in attendance event will stream live on @indiewrestling. You’ll be able to donate directly to performers. Please RT. pic.twitter.com/GlastQg6Os — Mustafa Ali / Adeel Alam (@AliWWE) March 20, 2020

Yesterday, Lio Rush sent tweets asking about people’s favorite indie wrestlers. This evening, he put a video of how he wants to support indie wrestlers during WrestleMania week. From March 30 through April 6, the M.O.T.H. will have three independent talents on his Instagram Live daily.

At the end of the livestream, there will be a link to donate directly to the talent whether it’s CashApp, PayPal, etc. To take it a step further, Rush will donate to every single person that he features.

https://twitter.com/itsLioRush/status/1242119755328294917?s=20

It’s also open to referees and ring announcers. Rush is asking fans to nominate indie talent via YouTube comments and social media replies.

This is an extraordinary way to give back to the indies. Rush has been there on the indie scene and knows what it’s like. He’s had his own issues with WWE about pay. His announcement comes just days after fellow Superstar Braun Strowman made ignorant comments in a now-deleted Instagram post about indie talent losing money due to the cancelation of #ManiaWeek shows.

Major kudos to Rush for giving his time, platform and money to help others that are struggling during this uncertain time.