Backstage Report On WWE Scheduling Events Around Major College Football Games

In the world of pro wrestling, WWE is the most dominant promotion and has been ever since Vince McMahon first took the reigs from his father in the 80s; today WWE still counter-books their shows against other promotions, specifically AEW, but usually when going up against major sports like football, all wrestling promotions are forced to take a step back.

However, as noted during a "Wrestling Observer Newsletter" report, WWE has announced four shows in conjunction with the Big 12 Conference's college football games. Despite this, because of how massive the Big 12 is in the cities WWE plans to have their shows, the report further claims that the promotion plans to tape episodes of "SmackDown" as far ahead as possible in anticipation of low attendance and that they'll suffer in the ratings regardless, even if they aren't in the same city. According to  the report, the following "WWE SmackDown" dates will be taped: July 22 before Iowa State vs. Kansas State; August 3 before Iowa State vs. Cincinnati; August 24 before Houston vs. Arizona State; August 31 before Cincinnati vs. Utah.

While WWE won't be going head-to-head with football anytime soon, the promotion has counter-programming AEW for a while. This past weekend, when AEW held one of its biggest pay-per-views, All In: Texas, WWE aired this year's NXT The Great American Bash at the same time.