As previously reported, this Friday night’s Supersized episode of WWE SmackDown from the Toyota Arena in Ontario, California will air on FS1 due to the MLB’s playoff games airing on FOX and that the show will run for 2 and a half hours, which means that the final 30 minutes of WWE SmackDown will go head-to-head with the first 30 minutes of AEW Rampage.
AEW President and CEO Tony Khan then took to Twitter and sent a warning to WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon as well as the WWE that he saw they are doing a half hour head-to-head with AEW’s Rampage and he can’t wait to finally beat the WWE’s main show head-to-head as it has been a long time coming. WWE then responded to Tony Khan when an ad aired during last Saturday night’s Iowa vs. Penn State college football game on FOX to promote this coming Friday night’s Supersized episode of WWE SmackDown on FS1 and it was revealed that the final 30 minutes of SmackDown will be commercial free.
Tony Khan fired back when he appeared on WFAN’s Moose and Maggie Show and made a massive announcement that there will be a live Buy-In Pre-Show this Friday at 9PM ET on AEW’s YouTube channel, which means that the Buy-In Pre-Show will be going head-to-head with the entire second hour of SmackDown ahead of a live episode of Rampage at 10PM ET on TNT.
This Friday’s Supersized edition of WWE SmackDown on FS1 will be the go-home show for WWE Crown Jewel and the show is stacked from top to bottom as we will see Carmella face Zelina Vega in a Queens Crown Tournament Semi-Finals Match, Finn Balor battle Sami Zayn in a King Of The Ring Tournament Semi-Final Match, Sonya Deville return to in-ring action to face Naomi, Brock Lesnar appearing and the SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch going one-on-one against Sasha Banks in a Non-title Main Event Matchup.
Rampage, on the other hand, will see CM Punk face Matt Sydal in Singles action, Ruby Soho take on The Bunny also in Singles action and Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, AEW TNT Champion Sammy Guevara and Jake Hager) battle Scorpio Sky, Ethan Page and former UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior Dos Santos in a Six-Man Tag Team Match.
Buy-In Pre-Shows usually air only before a PPV Event, but Tony Khan decided to have a Buy-In Pre-Show air prior to Rampage this coming Friday night as a way to further compete against WWE’s SmackDown and two matches are scheduled to take place on the pre-show. Ahead of their colossal showdown on Saturday night’s Dynamite, both Bryan Danielson and Bobby Fish will be in Singles action as Bryan Danielson is set to face Minoru Suzuki and Bobby Fish is set to take on Lee Moriarty.
You can check out the related tweets below:
