{"id":102375,"date":"2021-10-13T15:00:51","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T19:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=102375"},"modified":"2021-10-13T13:42:14","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T17:42:14","slug":"supersized-smackdown-aew-rampage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/13\/supersized-smackdown-aew-rampage\/","title":{"rendered":"Supersized SmackDown Goes Head to Head With AEW Rampage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The paradigm has shifted. <em>World Wrestling Entertainment<\/em> has finally stopped insisting that <em>All Elite Wrestling<\/em> is not competition, and are directly competing with the rival promotion on October 15\u2019s edition of <em>Friday Night SmackDown.<\/em> The \u201cmiddle child\u201d of WWE television, having launched in 1999, SmackDown was long considered the \u201cB\u201d show to flagship program <em>Monday Night Raw.<\/em> With Raw\u2019s rating\u2019s slump and <strong>Roman Reign\u2019s <\/strong>phenomenal <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/09\/04\/the-bloodline-gift-that-keeps-giving\/\" target=\"_self\">\u2018Bloodline\u2019 storyline<\/a> becoming the focal point of SmackDown, that has changed. Now, WWE seeks to capitalize on SmackDown\u2019s recent surge in popularity and consistency in ratings to go head to head against AEW\u2019s secondary show, <em>AEW: Rampage <\/em>with an extra half hour of SmackDown airing on FS1 at 8\/7 central.<\/p>\n<p>The last thirty minutes of \u201cSupersized\u201d SmackDown on October 15\u00a0 will be commercial-free, a strong enticement to fans not to change the channel\u2026especially, WWE is hoping, not to change the channel to TNT. The episode is a loaded one. As per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wwe.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE.Com<\/a>, <strong>Brock Lesnar <\/strong>is set to appear on SmackDown ahead of his <em>Crown Jewel <\/em>match against Reigns on October 21. The Queen\u2019s Crown tournament continues with <strong>Carmella <\/strong>pitted against <strong>Zelina Vega<\/strong> in the semifinals. The King of the Ring tournament also continues with <strong>Finn Balor<\/strong> vs. <strong>Sami Zayn<\/strong> in the semifinals<strong>. Sonya Deville\u2019s <\/strong>and <strong>Naomi\u2019s<\/strong> weeks of ire will finally come to blows in Deville\u2019s first match since her \u2018loser leaves WWE\u2019 match against <strong>Mandy Rose<\/strong> at <em>SummerSlam<\/em> 2020.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sonya Deville informs Naomi she will face her next week: SmackDown, Oct. 8, 2021\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xH1IUBGP1fM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>However, it is the commercial-free main event upon which WWE is surely pinning its hopes, <strong>Becky Lynch<\/strong> vs. <strong>Sasha Banks.<\/strong> Despite its recent uneven booking of the women\u2019s division, WWE still gives the division\u2019s top tier the star treatment. Banks and Lynch are two of the pioneers of the initial overhaul of the women\u2019s division in 2015-18, with Lynch being the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/04\/03\/wrestlemania-preview-winner-takes-all-ronda-rousey-c-vs-charlotte-flair-c-vs-becky-lynch\/\" target=\"_self\">first woman to headline<\/a> a <em>WrestleMania <\/em>in a triple threat against <strong>Charlotte Flair <\/strong>and <strong>Ronda Rousey <\/strong>at <em>Wrestlemania 35.<\/em> Banks also made WrestleMania history: she and <strong>Bianca Belair <\/strong>were the first two African-Americans to share a WrestleMania headlining match, as well as the first African-American women to do so, for which they won an Espy in 2021. Both have also found crossover success in pop culture outside WWE, with Lynch having appeared on the Showtime drama \u201cBillions\u201d and cutting <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/btsportwwe\/status\/1431627839468679176\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a BT Sports ad<\/a> for <strong>Connor McGregor <\/strong>ahead of <em>UFC 264, <\/em>and Banks co-starring on Disney drama \u201cThe Mandalorian.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Between their mutual accolades and popularity with WWE fans and beyond, WWE is turning to Banks, Lynch, and the \u201cblue brand\u201d sum total to grab viewers from Rampage. However, this strategy is still one that treats AEW as a fad, a novelty that viewers are \u2018checking out\u2019. That\u2019s not the case. In a short span of time, AEW has built an enthusiastic fan base all its own. While some of their biggest stars, like Punk, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/09\/05\/bryan-danielson-is-all-elite\/\" target=\"_self\">Danielson<\/a>, <strong>Jon Moxley,<\/strong> <strong>Christian Cage, <\/strong>and <strong>Chris Jericho<\/strong> are veterans of WWE, just as many are not, and have fan bases that were previously outside the scope of mainstream televised pro wrestling. Those audiences have been brought to the proverbial party, now, and are no doubt a significant factor in AEW\u2019s rapid success.<\/p>\n<p>WWE, which spent the \u201880s culling talent from the <em>NWA<\/em> territories until the system collapsed, and from smaller regional tv programs, once knew that looking far afield for talent and bringing them together on a grand stage was a formula for success. It is the formula AEW is using, bringing together wrestlers from disparate backgrounds together in great matches, on shows with dynamic production and exciting pacing.<\/p>\n<p>To combat their ascent, WWE is hoping that they have star power on their side. WWE stars have their own place in pop culture, and the affection that fans feel for their favorites is immense. Fan favorites Lynch and Banks are WWE\u2019s great hope for October 15\u2019s head-to-head with Rampage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The paradigm has shifted. World Wrestling Entertainment has finally stopped insisting that All Elite Wrestling is not competition, and are directly competing with the rival promotion on October 15\u2019s edition of Friday Night SmackDown. The \u201cmiddle child\u201d of WWE television, having launched in 1999, SmackDown was long considered the \u201cB\u201d show to flagship program Monday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":102401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4677,26,4,3],"tags":[163,57,1634,351,403,107,7500,140,111,4395,1752,406,77,1284,106,159,739,1747],"class_list":["post-102375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aew","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-becky-lynch","tag-brock-lesnar","tag-bryan-danielson","tag-carmella","tag-charlotte-flair","tag-chris-jericho","tag-christian-cage","tag-cm-punk","tag-finn-balor","tag-jon-moxley","tag-mandy-rose","tag-naomi","tag-roman-reigns","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sami-zayn","tag-sasha-banks","tag-sonya-deville","tag-zelina-vega"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}