WWE SmackDown WWE

2-Hour Format For WWE SmackDown Reportedly Will Return Next Month

Originally posted on Wrestling on SI | By Rick Ucchino | Last updated Jun 18, 2025 11:26 AM ET

As we wrote about on Tuesday, WWE appears ready to drop its third hour of programming on Friday nights.

The USA Network will soon be launching a new series that will air every Friday at 10pm ET (9pm CT), which will force SmackDown to be off the air by that time.

Variety is reporting that the new series called 'Rainmaker' will debut on Friday, August 15, but Mike Johnson of PWInsider says that episodes of the Blue Brand will return to the old two-hour format long before then.

Johnson is reporting that the target for WWE to drop the third hour is the upcoming Independence Day show on July 4.

There has still been no confirmation from either reps for TKO or WWE on the impending shift, but it was confirmed to be happening at some point this year by WWE Chief Content Officer Paul 'Triple' Levesque back in January.

SmackDown was bumped up to three hours as part of a deal worked out between WWE and the USA Network during the transition phase of moving Raw to Netflix, but the extension was designed to be temporary. We'll continue to keep you updated with the latest information on the SmackDown runtime, as it becomes available.

This article first appeared on Wrestling on SI and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: