WWE ThunderDome ending Tropicana Field residency on April 2
This post was updated at 10:50 PM Eastern.
Image: WWE
With the Major League Baseball season fast approaching, the Tampa Bay Rays will be getting their home field back from WWE just in time for the regular season to start.
Spectrum Sports 360’s Jon Alba reported Monday that a source told him that, as of now, WWE’s ThunderDome residency at Tropicana Field in Tampa, Florida, will end with the Friday, April 2nd SmackDown. POST Wrestling’s John Pollock tweeted that he was also told the same date with Dave Meltzer confirming the end date.
The Rays’ first home game is set for Friday, April 9th. Alba says that the conversion back to a baseball-first facility has already begun in some parts of the park.
It’s unknown where the massive ThunderDome structure and the new home for WWE programming will be heading to next, but Dave Meltzer recently reported that WWE was talking to officials at Tampa’s Yuengling Center (the former University of South Florida Sun Dome), a 55,000-square-foot arena.
By their own admission, WWE isn’t planning to run in front of live crowds (outside WrestleMania) until the second half of the year at earliest, necessitating yet another move.
WWE has been in Tampa since December 11, 2020, after kicking off the ThunderDome era at Orlando, Floriday’s Amway Center last August.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.