Friday Night SmackDown will officially make the jump from the USA Network to the FOX network on Friday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The show will air from 8 p.m. Eastern to 10 p.m. Eastern on FOX, and will serve as both the premiere and the 20th Anniversary special for the brand. Four matches have been announced for the show alongside a laundry list of returning legends, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting, Goldberg, Mick Foley, Lita, Trish Stratus, Mark Henry, Booker T and Kurt Angle.
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The card includes a WWE Championship match between Kofi Kingston and Brock Lesnar, a battle fo the Four Horsewomen as Becky Lynch teams with Charlotte Flair to face Sasha Banks and Bayley, a career-threatening ladder match between Kevin Owens and Shane McMahon and a grudge match between Roman Reigns and Erick Rowan. WWE will follow-up this week’s episode by having the Oct. 11 edition of SmackDown kick off a brand new WWE Draft that will re-establish the brand split between SmackDown and Raw.
SmackDown’s premiere is just the latest show in what has been one of the busiest weeks in recent wrestling history. This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, titled the “season premiere,” featured the Universal, United States and Raw Tag Team Championships all be put on the line. Then on Wednesday the first edition of the “Wednesday Night Wars” between AEW Dynamite and NXT took place. Despite NXT booking a mini-TakeOver event with three title matches and the surprise returns of Finn Balor and Tommaso Ciampa, Dynamite dominated the ratings with 1.4 million viewers compared to NXT’s 891,000.
As of Friday both shows have announced two matches for next week — NXT will feature Kushida vs. Walter and NXT Cruiserweight Champion Drew Gulak vs. Lio Rush, while Dynamite will have The Young Bucks vs. Private Party in the first match of the AEW World Tag Team Championship tournament and Jon Moxley vs. Shawn Spears.
WWE will conclude the wild week with the Hell in a Cell pay-per-view on Sunday night in Sacramento. Only three matches have been booked for the show so far — Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt for the Universal Championship, Lynch vs. Banks for the Raw Women’s Championship and Reigns & Daniel Bryan vs. Rowan & Like Harper. The two announced title matches will both take place inside the titular steel structure, and more matches are likely to be announced over the weekend.
