WWE and Fox’s relationship officially came to an end this weekend. Friday night’s telecast of Smackdown was the network’s final airing, as they will move back to USA Network beginning this coming Friday, September 13.
Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque signed off on Saturday morning, a ceremonial end to the relationship between the pro wrestling company and the broadcast network.
“Thank you to Fox for an unforgettable five years of broadcast television, pushing WWE further into the mainstream,” Levesque posted on X.
Smackdown joined Fox in October 2019. WWE signed a billion-dollar deal with the broadcast network to showcase the show on over-the-air television again. But Fox has substantially more exposure than the show’s predecessors, UPN, the early CW, and MyNetworkTV. So it was different. The debut episode scored an incredible rating before eventually settling into its range over the next few years.
The show debuted in Los Angeles on October 4, 2019. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson appeared (and who could have predicted how compelling he’d become years later) and Becky Lynch joined him in the same ring. Lynch later competed in the first match on Fox, teaming with Charlotte Flair against Bayley and Sasha Banks. WWE’s Four Horsewomen, a quartet of women’s wrestling trailblazers, were front and center for all to see from the word “go.” The debut episode is infamously remembered for how it concluded. Kofi Kingston fell to Brock Lesnar, ending Kingston’s reign as WWE Champion.
Smackdown struggled a bit in quality in the first five months on air. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened. On March 13, 2020, Smackdown aired live from the WWE Performance Center. It was the first of many crowd-less shows that would occur that year due to the pandemic. They later transitioned to the Thunderdome at Tropicana Field in Tampa, and later the USF basketball arena on the South Florida campus.
The show returned to touring in July 2021. They put on a memorable episode in September 2021 at the historic Madison Square Garden in New York City. In July 2022, Vince McMahon stepped down from WWE, and that night, Smackdown aired its first broadcast without him in power.
Over the years on Fox, Smackdown housed WWE’s biggest names. Roman Reigns and Bayley became two of the most dominant champions on the show. Reigns had a historically long title reign lasting nearly four years, and the Bloodline saga became a focal point of the show. He broke past superstardom and entered an entirely new stratosphere over the last four years. He became everything that everyone ever wanted him to become.
Bayley held the Smackdown Women’s Championship for 380 days and later became the focal point in the company’s hottest women’s storyline heading into WrestleMania XL. She and Iyo Sky’s confrontation, which led to The Role Model’s decision to challenge her former faction-mate at WrestleMania XL, earned television ratings that came close to the controversial segment featuring Reigns, Cody Rhodes, and The Rock.
Bayley and Sasha Banks’ rivalry also highlighted the Fall of 2020. She and Banks’ championship match on a November 2020 episode helped the episode hold strong on a night when the United States Presidential election results were announced.
Other stars that appeared and grew on Smackdown over the past five years included the late Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, Bianca Belair, Jey Uso, and recently Jade Cargill.
The relationship over the past few years had its moments. Friday nights have never been a joyful night of television, but the show performed well. After WWE’s hierarchical change, the show scored great ratings in 2022 and 2023. 2024 has been a solid year, with the high mark being the road to WrestleMania. The censoring, while necessary, got a bit obtrusive towards the end.
All in all, Fox opted to switch to live sports on Fridays instead of professional wrestling . Smackdown will return to USA Network, where it will remain for the foreseeable future. Raw is set to move to Netflix in an unprecedented move this January. USA will have both shows through 2024, which will be something the network can hang its hat on.
The post WWE bids farewell to Fox as ‘Smackdown’ run concludes appeared first on Awful Announcing .
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