:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50306661/abc_daniel_bryan_jc_160216_31x13_1600.0.jpg){kind=spacer}
There’s another quote making the rounds from SmackDown Live General Manager Daniel Bryan’s appearance on the Bear Hug It Out podcast earlier this week, where he previously announced that a second Women’s title is in the works.
A lot of folks have focused on his saying WWE performers are making less money since the Draft split rosters a couple of weeks ago. And that’s a bummer, but at least for those hardest affected it sounds like a temporary one, since the SmackDown crew will start booking Monday house shows once the dust settles after SummerSlam.
What jumps out, and is something I hadn’t heard before, is Bryan’s point about this adding an off-day for WWE contractors. Previously, everyone worked an average week of Friday - Tuesday, but now Raw will work Friday - Monday while SmackDown works Saturday - Tuesday.
One extra day off a week doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it adds up. And a guy who reluctantly retired early after years of life on the road recognizing the benefit it could bring:
It’s interesting because some of them don’t like it because everyday that you’re on the road and not working, you don’t get paid, so you’re spending money and not getting paid. So it just becomes like a, ‘okay, so now I’m making less money, but spending the same amount of being on the road and that sort of thing’. But pretty soon, we’re going to start doing SmackDown live events on Monday nights, the same night as RAW, so then that’s going to even out a bit.
And I think that extra day on the road at home makes a huge difference. I mean, there’s a huge difference between leaving on Friday and coming home on Wednesday and leaving on Saturday and coming home on Wednesday or leaving on Friday and coming home on Tuesday. So I think it’s going to be better for the health of everybody.
It’s not an off-season, or a rotating roster, as some have suggested as a way to mitigate the extremely demanding schedule WWE has for their workers, but it’s a something.
What do you think, Cagesiders?