WWE SmackDown Moving Back To Three Hours May Not Be Permanent

It was recently revealed that Friday Night SmackDown will revert back to three hours at the beginning of 2026, with the January 2 episode in Buffalo, New York set to be the first three-hour SmackDown in several months.

The switch to 180 minutes may not be a permanent change for SmackDown, however, and Bryan Alvarez has reported on Wrestling Observer Live that the feeling within WWE is the Friday night show will only be three hours for six to seven months. SmackDown will then move back to two hours.

The reason for the change at the beginning of 2026 is believed to be due to Everything on the Menu with Braun Strowman, which currently airs following SmackDown at 10 pm ET, coming to an end.

"I can't say this 100 per cent, but I can tell you that there's a feeling within WWE that this is going to be very similar to what happened this year, which is in 2026 it's gonna move to three hours. It'll probably be that way for six-seven months and then it'll go back to two hours again for the remainder of the year," Alvarez said.

"I think this has something to do, right now they've got two hours and the two hours is followed by the Braun Strowman show. The Braun Strowman show is doing frickin' great. Number one because Braun Strowman is involved and he's a big name to wrestling fans, and also apparently it's a really good show, and it goes right after SmackDown. So the Braun Strowman show is beating like NXT and Dynamite, that's how well the Braun Strowman show is doing. So I think the Braun Strowman show goes through the end of the year," he continued.

"So when the show ends, I guess they're going to move SmackDown back to three hours again and then they're going to find some other show involving a WWE talent that they can then put on maybe halfway through 2026. And then the show would go back to two hours and away we go."

SmackDown has been a two-hour series for the majority of the show's existence since it premiered in 1999. SmackDown was a three-hour series for the first half of 2025, however, and the change was not well received by fans or people within WWE.

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