Will WWE SmackDown Add a Third Hour?
The possibility of WWE adding a third hour of Friday Night SmackDown to its weekly lineup was once again brought up when WWE CEO Nick Khan appeared at the JPMorgan Global TMT Teleconference on Tuesday. Khan confirmed that the company is open to a third hour while also confirming that the window of exclusive negotiations with FOX for SmackDown's next round of media rights contracts has expired. The current contract has SmacKDown staying on the network on Friday nights until next year.
Elsewhere, Khan confirmed that Monday Night Raw will continue to be a three-hour show through its next TV contract, though there have been discussions about how to change up the third hour and make it more"adult." Previous attempts at this idea have resulted in WWE changing its lighting for the third hour and the invention of Raw Underground.
Nick Khan on U.S. media rights exclusive windows for Raw & Smackdown: "We're just out of the exclusive window with Fox. We're still in the window with NBCU."
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) May 23, 2023
Deleted a prior tweet that incorrectly said they were out of the windows on both.
A popular question regarding WWE's upcoming merger with UFC into TKO Group Holdings under Endeavor is what effect the parent company might have. Both WWE President Nick Khan and Paul "Triple H" Levesque pushed back against the idea during a recent quarterly investors' conference call.
"I can certainly represent emphatically to you on the creative that there's no one at Endeavor or the UFC that has any interest in trying to interfere with that, in any way whatsoever," Khan said at the time. "I think [UFC President] Dana White would also represent to you that never or almost never, I don't know the specifics but never would be my guess, have the Endeavor folks told him no, you should do this match or you should do it this way. That's not what they do."
"Creatively, we look forward to continuing to do what we do and the momentum that it has," Triple H said. "And on top of that, I speak for myself, I'm incredibly excited about what endeavor brings to the table and how we can utilize them to expand our efforts and really hyper focus on them internationally and, and growing what we do across the globe. I think they'll be incredibly helpful there."
WWE Night of Champions Full Card (As of Now)
- World Heavyweight Championship: Seth Rollins vs. AJ Styles
- Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships: Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn vs. Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa
- WWE Intercontinental Championship: Gunther vs. Mustafa Ali
- Raw Women's Championship: Bianca Belair vs. Asuka
- SmackDown Women's Championship: Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya
- Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar
- Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus