WWE SmackDown Reportedly Expected to Return as Weekly Two-Hour Show by August 15th

As noted, WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque had stated in an interview with The Pat McAfee Show this past January that Smackdown’s move to being a weekly three-hour show was not a permanent move. WWE had been considering plans for SmackDown to go back to being a two-hour weekly show starting on June 6th only for those plans to be delayed instead.

The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported that WWE’s SmackDown series is currently expected to return as a weekly two-hour show starting on Friday, August 15th.

Meltzer stated that a recent report from Variety stated that USA Network’s new “The Rainmaker” television series is currently scheduled to debut on the network on August 15th starting at 10PM EST. Meltzer reported that this would mean that SmackDown would be going back to its former two-hour format that night.

USA Network confirmed that The Rainmaker will be premiering on their network on that date and start time.

The Rainmaker — which will premiere on August 15, 2025, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on USA Network, with episodes streaming on Peacock one week after they first air — stars Milo Callaghan as Rudy Baylor, a young law school grad. As the new trailer reveals, he gets fired on his first day working for the powerhouse lawyer Leo Drummond (Mad Men’s John Slattery), forcing him to get a job with Brusier (Once Upon a Time’s Lana Parrilla), a tough, talented, but not exactly reputable lawyer. (Her offices are located in what used to be a taco shop.) Rudy and Bruiser are joined by disheveled paralegal Deck (P.J. Byrne).