FOX CEO Hints at More WWE Programming on FOX Channels
FOX CEO Charlie Collier discussed the company's upcoming plans to bring SmackDown Live to the [...]
FOX CEO Charlie Collier discussed the company's upcoming plans to bring SmackDown Live to the network channel starting in October during this week's Television Critics Association Press Tour.
While discussing the plan to bring the Blue Brand over to Friday night's and still keep it as a live broadcast, Collier mentioned some other plans the company has in the works with WWE, namely that other programs will appear on other FOX channels.
"The Fox sports networks, FS1, and others, will have some other wrestling —not live Smackdown, not Raw, but other ties to the WWE world," he said.
Collier also mentioned that SmackDown's location on Friday night's will be "short term," which leaves the door open for the show to move to a different time, night or channel.
While SmackDown's creative direction with a heelish Daniel Bryan as WWE Champion and "The Man" Becky Lynch as a main event player has been interesting to watch, it hasn't resulted in ratings lately. The show had an audience of 1,837,000 this week, taking a massive hit in the second hour for going head-to-head with the State of the Union address. That audience total is the lowest the show has seen since moving to Tuesday night's on the USA Network back in 2016.
This week's SmackDown saw Bryan face Jeff Hardy in the main event, which was scrapped after Rowan interfered before Hardy could score a pin. Samoa Joe and Randy Orton both ran down to interfere, resulting in a brawl that also involved Mustafa Ali and AJ Styles. The final sequence of the fight saw Ali get Clawslammed onto the announce table by Rowan and Styles hit Hardy with a Phenomenal Forearm.
Bryan, Styles, Ali, Orton, Hardy and Joe will all compete in an Elimination Chamber match at the Feb. 17 pay-per-view of the same name.
Other matches announced for the show at the Toyota Center in Houston include a six-team Elimination Chamber match to crown the new WWE Women's Tag Team Champions, a title that has not been seen since the WWF era in the late 1980s. Other matches include the SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Miz and Shane McMahon vs. The Usos and Cruiserweight Champion Buddy Murphy vs. Akira Tozawa.
WWE's biggest event of the year, WrestleMania 35, already has its two biggest matches booked as Universal Champion Brock Lesnar will take on Royal Rumble winner Seth Rollins and Lynch will face Ronda Rousey for the Raw Women's Championship.
