Why WWE Are Taping Two Episodes Of SmackDown On November 22

WWE are taping two episodes of SmackDown in Salt Lake City on November 22, with the second episode of the session set to air on November 29.

The company don’t pre-record many episodes of Raw or SmackDown, however the decision has been made to do a double taping on November 22 so talents can take all of Thanksgiving off on November 28 and not have to travel for SmackDown.

WWE’s reasoning behind this decision was explained by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio:

“The November 22 SmackDown, which is Salt Lake City, they’re going to be taping two shows, which is the reason is because the 29th, which is the day after Thanksgiving, this would be, I think, the first time they’ve ever done this. They are not going to run a taping that night, so all the talent can spend Thanksgiving night with their families, because if they have a Friday taping, it’s in Salt Lake City, you got to fly out the day before… if it’s not in the vicinity of the northeast, you know where the southeast, because most of the talent lives in Florida. But the point of this all is they’re letting people spend all Thanksgiving with their family, and they’re going to get Friday off. The old ownership… they hadn’t had people work Thanksgiving, but they did have people having to fly on Thanksgiving, you know, to get to the Friday tapings. That’s happened for years. So they’re not doing that this year.” Roman Reigns has been announced to appear at the tapings on November 22.

H/T: WrestlingNews.co

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