WWE Week is being billed as a tournament

What kind of SUV is that?

Through various pictures posted yesterday, at least 13 WWE stars were present at the tapings, 10 of which are known to be competing on the show. The other three did not have name tags, so it's possible they were only there to watch or film promos or non-gameplay segments. The stars will have name tags with WWE logos and will go by their wrestling names rather than their real names.

Confirmed contestants:


Present at taping but unknown if playing:


If the "tournament" is a revival of Friday Finals (which would be the first since 1999), there cannot be more than 12 stars competing. It's possible there is just an extra prize or honor for the week's highest winner, which has been done on celebrity/sports weeks before after Friday Finals was retired.

One of the stars' Instagram posts from the taping shows a partial glimpse of the screen that shows the current standings. The screen shows the names of a blue team, one of whom is named Tracina. AFAIK, there is no WWE star with that name, so it's likely a civilian.

I can now confirm Friday Finals will be used for WWE Week, including for the civilians!


I've been exchanging messages with the Twitter user who claimed to be there. Some more details:



According to this person, the taping was severely slowed down with promos, photoshoots, and technical difficulties and didn't let out until 9:30 PM, as opposed to the usual 5-6 PM.

One situation this person mentioned to me, which I'm not confident is true (there may be some miscommunication in the midst since he doesn't know Wheel's format that well):

Like I’ve said in the discord, I’m really not sure what the point of this week is. It feels redundant since we already have a dedicated Celebrity series that has featured WWE stars (both of whom appearing on this week) and could have easily just stuck with the status quo.

The notion of Friday Finals is intriguing, however, I’d like it if they used it again for speciality contestant weeks (teachers, college, military, couples, etc.). Although it really does make it feel like they couldn’t find enough people to cast for this week, as evidenced by the fact that they were advertising the application as recently as last Tuesday, just over a week before taping, likely bypassing the regular audition process.

The second gift tag over $550 likely couldn’t go on the green $500 adjacent to it because the $600 one space over is a similar color, but will still likely award $500 as normal protocol.

What on earth could have happened to make a taping day run nearly 4 hours longer than normal? Surely a supposed shortened game and record-long final spin attempt wouldn’t do that alone. Maybe stuff for promotional material and extended interview segments?

As someone who's been a viewer of Wheel since 1986, and WWE(going back to the WWF days) since 1991, I'm actually a little worried how this will come off on TV.

It's mostly from the end of the wrestlers. I am PRAYING they don't go 'into character' on Wheel. Especially not at the expense of their civilian partners.

If that were to happen, I would think it would be somewhat damaging to both the Wheel of Fortune AND WWE brands.

It's why that, for that factor, I might have to skip watching this set of Wheel episodes. I would likely feel uncomfortable and awkward doing so.

I'm just hoping those here will understand, as I guess I never really completely got over the 'It's still real to me' part of what pro wrestling is, even after I found out the truth about it.

=S

According to another witness, the Friday Finals will have a slight gameplay change due to the existence of a certain gameplay element that did not exist the last time Friday Finals was done, and would be redundant. The realization of this at the last moment is apparently what caused the long stopdown.

Excited to see WWE Week at the end of the month.