(WATCH): That’s A Little Different. WWE Makes Some Changes To This Week’s SmackDown Live Dark Matches.

Turn on the lights because we’re not done yet. There are a lot of matches that take place on a given week in WWE. Some have more than others, with this week’s Monday Night Raw featuring nine matches and SmackDown Live featuring five. While that is quite the disparity, SmackDown Live does make up for it a bit and in this case they did it moreso than usual.

According to Wrestlinginc.com, there were three dark matches this week at the SmackDown Live taping instead of the usual two. Before the show went on the air, Ali defeated Buddy Murphy for the third week in a row. This time, Ali tweeted out some footage from the match, which you can see below. After the shows were over, Bayley defeated Charlotte with the Bayley to Belly to retain the SmackDown Women’s Title. Bayley wrestled earlier in the night but Charlotte did not appear on the show. In the third dark match, Kofi Kingston retained the WWE Title against Dolph Ziggler via DQ when Ziggler used a kendo stick.

He really is a light in the dark. Check out part of Ali vs. Murphy:

Opinion: This sounds like a way to get fans to stick around after SmackDown Live and 205 Live are over and I’m not sure how well that is going to work. While the idea makes sense, it is asking fans to stick around even later than they would have been there earlier. Having 205 Live after the show has never worked and I don’t know why WWE can’t seem to comprehend that.

Which of these matches sound best? How else can WWE get fans to stay after the show? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the History Of In Your House.

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