With millions of fans all over the world demanding the brand split, WWE has finally listened to it and announced the same. They managed to get back the lost soil under their ground by headlining it once again with breaking news. The pro-wrestling industry was shaken with the news when WWE announced a few days ago that WWE Smackdown will have its own identity coming July 19. From the mentioned date, WWE Raw and Smackdown will both return to its original format making them two separate brands with separate roster and championship.
With WWE Network getting bigger every single day, the demand for quality products are on a high and WWE had no choice but to announce the blue brand as a separate one. With the announcement, there came a thousand of speculations with the format and running of the show. We are confirmed that Smackdown will have its own roster and we will get back the most exciting WWE Draft. Needless to say, this definitely indicates new titles reintroduced, new feuds for Smackdown with new superstars. It was also reported earlier that July 11 is the probable date for the Draft to happen.
Now, that Raw runs for three hours long live on the USA Network there was a rumor flying around that Smackdown too will be a three-hour special event after the brand split since it will go live. But, according to veteran journalist Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, There is no logic of making Smackdown a three-hour live show as they will not get paid extra from the USA Network for an extra hour addition.
Furthermore, most of the fans do not want it to expand it from its original format of two-hour. Currently, Smackdown is taped on Tuesday nights which gets telecasted on Thursday nights. So, with that being said the possibility of Smackdown being a three-hour show was put down to rest.
The contrary part is that many feel that the two-hour long run will make the show more compact and can create more popularity giving tough competition to Raw. Even Raw was a two-hour long show and expanded to three hours as fans loved it. But, fans do feel it’s quite hectic to spend three long hours in watching the entire live telecast.