During a press tour with the Television Critics Association, Fox Entertainment CEO Charlie Collier spoke about the future partnership between Fox and the WWE. Outside of calling himself a Roddy Piper fan growing up, he said of WWE’s SmackDown coming to the network that the move is “short term” and more will air on Fox related to wrestling than SmackDown Live.
Collier spoke of how excited he is to have WWE joining with Fox because “They’re great storytellers and I think it fits beautifully with what we’re doing.” That said, it sounds like he expects there to be changes. Calling the move to Fridays short-term, it sounds a lot like Fox is leaving their options open and is more than willing to move SmackDown around, potentially taking it off of Friday nights even though that’s where the show will start.
"Short term, Friday night is going to WWE," Collier says when asked about Last Man Standing. That show could go elsewhere. But WWE being "short term" Fridays tells me they may move it around. #TCA19
— Chris E. Hayner (@ChrisHayner) February 6, 2019
Collier also confirmed that more WWE content is planned to go along with SmackDown Live and that Fox is going to treat the show as more of a sport than an episodic television show.
If true, that could mean big changes in the way WWE writes and airs its programming. It may also mean the shifting of some superstars between brands, getting the better in-ring workers on SmackDown with the more storyline-style talent on Raw.
Side Note: For fans of Last Man Standing starring Tim Allen, the show will be moved to a new night if renewed by the network.
