WWE Considered Making SmackDown Three Hours

Monday Night Raw has been a three hour show for nine years as of last month, and many fans believe that the quality of the show has declined since the transition.

According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE considered making the same change to SmackDown, citing AEW Rampage’s impending debut as the reason.

Meltzer explained:

“Rampage debuts August 13th, and when the idea came out. The old Vince McMahon would have put that third hour of SmackDown on FS1, because that was even talked about before. When the idea of Rampage, and this and this goes way, way back I mean over a year ago, the idea was always for it to be Friday at 10:00 PM from you know, over a year ago, who’s to know what WWE knew and didn’t know?”

The third hour of the show would take place on FS1, as WWE is not able to air three hours on Fox due to the channel requiring to show the nightly news at 10pm EST.

It is unknown if WWE will go ahead with the move or any other to oppose AEW Rampage when it debuts, but Vince McMahon himself recently noted that he doesn’t view AEW as competition, so there should be no need for any counterprogramming, right?

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