A big elephant in the room WWE likely does not want to think about right now is what happens to their ratings once SmackDown moves to Friday nights. How does WWE keep their fan base home for two hours on Friday night?
Sure moving to a channel with a wider reach will help, but just rolling out SmackDown to Fox on Friday nights in October will not be a cure all.
This week on SiriusXM’s Busted Open, co-host Bully Ray had an idea on what could save SmackDown once it switches over to it’s Friday night spot.
“From a creative point you know what I would do? Right out of the gate I’d hand Paul Heyman the pencil and say ‘go get them.’ Because he’s probably the only proven one when it comes to making SmackDown special.”
Ray continued:
“If there is one person out there that has a track record of making SmackDown successful and a definitively better show than Raw it was Paul Heyman in probably what 2003? 2004? So we know he can get the job done. We know he’s there. I would put the pencil in his hand and say ‘hey what can you do with this?’. I think his creativity with that show and the way he knows how to use characters and gel them with story lines would work.”
"From a creative point you know what I would do? Right out of the gate I'd hand Paul Heyman the pencil and say 'go get them.'"@bullyray5150 explains why @HeymanHustle running #SDLive creative when they move to FOX would make wrestling on Friday nights "must watch"#WWE pic.twitter.com/3tHHUlpURG
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) May 7, 2019
This may be incentive for pro wrestling fans to stay in for two hours on Friday nights and would really make each of WWE’s brands vastly different shows.
There are many reasons to disagree with Bully Ray on pretty much every pro wrestling issue under the sun, but maybe he’s onto something here. A lot of money and maybe bigger egos would have to come together, but how great would it be to have Paul Heyman get one last run as key member of WWE creative?
If WWE really wants to shake things up, and maybe even surprise a few pundits along the way, handing the book to Paul Heyman on Friday nights in October would be one way to do it.