Michael Perry on May 6, 2022
WWE fans have been enjoying a lot of crossover between Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown lately. The main event for the upcoming WrestleMania Backlash premium live event will feature RK-Bro and Drew McIntyre taking on The Bloodline in a match that spans both brands. That means all the major players have been showing up on both shows.
That is not expected to last very long. While fans have enjoyed seeing their favorite stars jumping back and forth, the networks have not. Fox, in particular, prefers exclusivity on SmackDown’s talent.
On today’s Wrestling Observer Live, Dave Meltzer talked about the issue. The crossovers are OK from time to time, but Fox doesn’t want it to last. USA would also prefer to have exclusive wrestlers, but it is the home network of SmackDown that is really against the idea of sharing.
“They don’t want to keep that [crossover between Raw and SmackDown] going for a long time… Both networks kind of want unique rosters. You can do some of that back and forth, but really, Fox in particular really wants, kind of exclusivity on its guys.”
The main event for Sunday’s WrestleMania Backlash will feature stars from both brands. The originally advertised match was a tag team title unification bout between RK-Bro and The Usos. That story had been building for weeks on both Raw and SmackDown.
We will have to wait and see if wrestlers continue to show up on both brands. Fox is not happy with the idea. WWE may have to cut back on the practice moving forward.
What do you think of this story? Let us know in the comments!
Transcription by Ringside News
May 6, 2022 4:17 pm
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