WWE To Keep Brand Extension In Place When SmackDown Live Moves To Fox

There has been a lot of speculation in recent times as to whether WWE will keep the current brand extension in place when SmackDown Live completes its move to Fox in October.

Thanks to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it looks like we have some clarity on the situation, with Raw and SmackDown set to keep their exclusive rosters due to Fox not wanting to cross-promote talent who will be appearing on the USA Network.

Here is the full quote from Meltzer himself: “There was speculation going around that with the move to FOX that they would go to one brand because they would need all the top stars on FOX because of how important network primetime numbers are. That was denied to us and said that FOX doesn’t really want to cross-promote the same talent as NBC Universal and the expectation is split crews would remain.”

It must be noted that at the time of writing, several outlets are reporting that there are currently no plans to revert to brand exclusive pay-per-views.

It looks like it's going to be a gradual process over the next few months in terms of details about WWE's new deal with Fox being released. Outside of the $1.5 billion deal actually being announced, all we've had to go off is rumour and innuendo, with the most interesting so far linking UFC Heavyweight Champion Daniel Cormier to a commentator's role on the new SmackDown Live.