SmackDown Moving To Tuesday
Big news coming out of the wrestling world today regarding WWE and the future of SmackDown. Today the company announced that the show will be moving to Tuesday Nights, and will be live for the first time ever starting July 19th. It will start in the same 8 pm eastern time slot on the USA Network.
SmackDown had several timeslots from Friday nights until moving to Thursday nights in January. The show is the second main show in the company next to Raw. SmackDown debuted on Thursday’s in 1999.
For the past several years, the show has been Raw reruns of matches and recapping what happened on RAW. From 1999 and into the late 2000s, the show was its own brand and it showed off a lot of potential superstars who turned out to be big stars in the company like John Cena.
With the move to Tuesday night, it is big news to wrestling fans. Ever since the show has debuted on TV 17 years ago, it has always been taped on Tuesday night’s, being shown two or three days later. Now that the show is live, there is going to be fans that will be tuning in to the program without knowing the results from wrestling dirt sheets.
Something to take from this move is what the company said about the move. It was said that the show will be having a “distinct roster”. What that means for wrestling fans is there is a really good chance that the WWE brand split is coming back. That seems like it is a good thing for the company with Shane McMahon and Stephanie McMahon taking care of Raw and the other taking care of SmackDown. With each McMahon picking superstars from the roster in a draft style format to pick what superstars that they want to perform on either shows.
“WWE’s flagship programs will both leverage the incredible depth of our talent roster, distinct storylines and the unpredictable nature of live TV,” WWE Chairman Mr. McMahon said. “This move will undoubtedly build more excitement and deepen engagement with our fans around the world.”
