It appears as though WWE and/or SyFy have made a last minute decision and will be keeping SmackDown in its Friday night time slot from 8-10 p.m. ET. The fall line-up has been released and, indeed, SmackDown is listed on Friday while Haven, the show starring former WWE Champion Edge (Adam Copeland), will air on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET instead of the originally planned 10 p.m.
Considering the crossover, it was thought Haven would always run after SmackDown. Obviously, that's no longer the case.
This comes after over a month of rumors and reports that SmackDown would be switching nights, which started when a fan snapped a picture of a production truck listing the show as airing on Thursday night. At the time, WWE confirmed there were discussions about switching nights but nothing was official and the graphic making the rounds was a simple mistake and a final decision had yet to be made.
While Friday night has long been considered a death slot for television, SmackDown typically rules the roost. That would almost certainly no longer be the case on Thursday, especially considering the NFL kicked off its regular season last night and will offer a slate of games on CBS through the first half of the season.
What's also interesting to consider here is that there were reports Spike TV moved Impact to Wednesday night in part because of WWE moving SmackDown to Thursday.
Your thoughts on this, Cagesiders?