WWE Taping 3 Hours Of TV Every Friday; 205 Live May Get Cancelled

Changes are coming ahead of SmackDown's move to Fox - although it may not be good news for 205 Live.

by Andrew Pollard
Kofi Kingston - WWE Champion
www.wwe.com

Hot on the heels of WWE announcing that NXT is moving to the USA Network for a weekly live two-hour broadcast next month, now comes rumblings of some possible changes to SmackDown Live and 205 Live.

Courtesy of Dave Meltzer, there has reportedly been talks amongst WWE brass of the weekly SmackDown tapings consisting of three hours once the blue brand moves to Friday nights on Fox from October 4th.

There’s no concrete details just yet on what exactly that third hour will consist of, with Meltzer speculating that this extra hour may be used to tape in-ring content for a new FS1 show or even for new WWE Network content.

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One school of thinking is to just presume that the extra hour is for WWE to tape its weekly 205 Live offering. For fans of 205 Live, however, the worrying news is that WWE is still toying with the idea of completely scrapping 205 Live as some higher-ups view the cruiserweight show as a failed experiment.

Right now, it at least appears that WWE doesn’t have any plans to stretch SmackDown Live out into a three-hour weekly broadcast – which is something that many fans were fearing once the Fox move happens.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.