WWE Makes Another Change To Television Schedule, New Hybrid System

The more things change. We are in a very different time in the wrestling world at the moment and it seems like something new is happening every single day. WWE is feeling a lot of those changes as it is next to impossible to keep track of what kind of changes they are undergoing on a daily basis. Believe it or not, it is already time for another change to take place.

One of the bigger stories that WWE has dealt with over the last few weeks is their television setup. The company has gone from setting up a marathon taping schedule to running three weekly live events in the span of a few days and not many people seem to be happy with the whole situation. With so many travel restrictions in place at the moment, wrestlers may not be thrilled with the idea of making so many trips. Now though, that may not be such a problem.

According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, WWE is changing its television schedule again, this time to a mixture of live and taped shows. The three shows for the week of April 20 will all be live as usual. Starting on Saturday April 25, two episodes of SmackDown will be taped, followed by a double taping each for Monday Night Raw and NXT on April 27 and 29 respectively. The double tapings will continue for through the July 8 edition of NXT, with some slight variations to the schedule throughout. Here is the upcoming schedule:

• Raw will air on Monday live as scheduled on USA Network
• NXT will air on Wednesday live as scheduled
• Next Friday, SmackDown will air live as scheduled
• Saturday, April 25; two episodes of SmackDown will be taped (airing May 1 and May 8)
• Monday, April 27; two episodes of Raw will be taped (one for that night and the other will air the following week on May 4)
• Wednesday, April 29; two episodes of NXT will be taped (one is for that night, the other will air on May 6)
• Monday, May 11; one episode of Raw will be taped for that night and one episode of SmackDown will be taped for May 15
• Tuesday, May 12; one episode of Raw will be taped for May 18 and one episode of SmackDown will be taped for May 22
• Wednesday, May 13; two episodes of NXT will be taped (one is for that night, the other will air on May 20)
• Monday, May 25; two episodes of Raw will be taped (one for that night, the other will air on June 1)
• Tuesday, May 26; two episodes of SmackDown will be taped (one will air on May 29, the other will air on June 5)
• Wednesday, May 27; two episodes of NXT will be taped (one is for that night, the other will air on June 3)
• Monday, June 8; one episode of Raw taped for that evening and another episode of SmackDown taped for June 12
• Tuesday, June 9; one episode of NXT will be taped for June 10
• Monday, June 15; one episode of Raw taped for that evening and another episode of SmackDown taped for June 19
• Tuesday, June 16; one episode of Raw taped for June 22 and another episode of SmackDown taped for June 26
• Wednesday, June 17; two episodes of NXT will be taped (one is that night, the other will air on June 24)
• Monday, June 29; two episodes of Raw will be taped (one for that night and the other will air on July 6)
• Tuesday, June 30; two episodes of SmackDown will be taped (one for July 3 and one for July 10)
• Wednesday, July 1; two episodes of NXT will be taped (one is for that night, the other will air on July 8)

There has been a lot going on in recent weeks. Check out some highlights of recent shows:

Opinion: That’s a lot more like it, as there is just no reason to have so many wrestlers coming down to Orlando every single week time after time. This at least gives them some time off instead of having them do so many shows at once. It might not be the marathon tapings which seem to make more sense, but then again no other company has three long shows per week. This seems to be better, and hopefully it makes the situation improve at least a little bit.

Do you like this new schedule? What other changes do you expect? 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 30 wrestling books. Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. Thank you for reading!