Friday is going to be an exciting night for wrestling fans as WWE has announced that the Supersized SmackDown that’s airing on FS1 will continue beyond 10 PM for an extra 30 minutes. This means that Friday Night SmackDown and AEW Rampage will go head to head, and WWE has also announced that the final 30 minutes of SmackDown will be commercial free.
AEW President Tony Khan recently announced a special Buy In starting at 9 PM ahead of AEW Rampage airing on TNT, and the Buy In will feature Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki.
Ahead of a huge #AEWRampage show THIS Friday night at 10pm ET/9pm CT LIVE on TNT with @CMPunk vs. @MattSydal + Jericho/Hager/@sammyguevara vs. Sky/Page/Dos Santos w/ @GamebredFighter, we’re open Friday Live with The Buy In online at 9 ET/8 CT @suzuki_D_minoru vs. @bryandanielson! https://t.co/bqzCO6Ps9e
— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) October 12, 2021
Tony Khan recently spoke to the New York Post about AEW going head to head with WWE, and he noted that he was surprised that WWE took to the commercials out of SmackDown.
“It’s a little bit different than the Wednesday Night Wars because that was from the very beginning of Dynamite and we put our head down and it was an every-week thing. This seemed like pretty predatory, which is fine if that’s how you want to play it. It’s not outwardly how they’ve (WWE) shown they wanted to play it.
I’ve coined a phrase which is WYW, watch your wrestling. Whatever people [want] to watch, I want them to watch it. Unfortunately, if we are on at the same time it’s harder for people to watch their wrestling, at least live. We can take the commercials out of it. If you want to take the commercials out of it, I can do that too. It doesn’t seem very civil but I have more money than they do so I can afford to do that longer than they can. But that’s how we make money at the end of the day, so I was surprised when they took those out.”
Which show will you be watching on Friday? Sound off in the comments below.
