Fox Sports 1 is reportedly scaling back its WWE content in the near future, according to a new report from Sports Business Journal‘s John Ourand. According to him, WWE Backstage will no longer be produced on a weekly basis, though it’s unclear if the show is being canceled altogether. The show initially premiered on Nov. 5, 2019 with Renee Young and Booker T as the hosts and a rotating cast of panelists Paige, Christian and Mark Henry.
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The show is perhaps best known for bringing CM Punk a step back into the wrestling world as a semi-regular panelist.
FS1 is scaling back production on its boxing and WWE shoulder programming. “WWE Backstage will not longer be produced weekly. It is eliminating “Inside PBC.” Double digit job losses as a result. SBJ Media will have the full story tonight.
— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) June 22, 2020
Pro Wrestling Sheet‘s Ryan Satin, who worked as a correspondent for the show and often broke major news with his segments, indicated on Twitter that he was no longer with the show.
Thanks to everyone at @FS1 for the opportunity to work on #WWEBackstage! I had a blast working with @ReneeYoungWWE, @BookerT5x, @RealPaigeWWE, @jacobu, @grossman, @bradweimer and every single person I came into contact with on the show. I learned a lot working with you all. https://t.co/iLnYF0jGyj
— Ryan Satin (@ryansatin) June 22, 2020
As of this writing, neither WWE nor the panelists have commented on the report.
The latest episode featured Punk commenting on a variety of current WWE storylines. He stated that he felt WWE did Edge and Randy Orton a big disservice by promoting their match as the “Greatest Match Ever” at Backlash.
“I think if you’re Randy and Edge you just ignore that, you can’t live up to that, it’s too subjective of a label,” Punk said. “‘Greatest Match of All Time,’ what’s the ‘Greatest Single of All Time’? Music-wise. What’s the ‘Greatest Band of All-Time’? What’s the ‘Greatest Car of All Time?’ It’s too subjective. Everybody’s going to have a different opinion, but I think that’s what makes wrestling great. You can talk about all these different wrestlers from all these different regions from all over the world who wrestle a different style, and sometimes in the ring you get magic. I think they had a great match. Was it the greatest match of all time? I’ve seen better Randy Orton matches. I’ve seen better Edge matches.
“But… to put that on the marquee, and get people to watch, I kind of feel like it was a lot of unnecessary pressure — especially on Edge — coming back after almost a decade of not wrestling,” he added. “They did a great job of compartmentalizing that, and almost ignoring it, just going out there and delivering.”
