What’s the story?
WWE dropped a widely criticised announcement yesterday regarding the cancellation of WWE SmackDown’s weekly post show program, Talking Smack. What was considered to be one of the best aspects of WWE’s programming ever since the brand split will now be only exclusive to Pay-Per-Views.
In the wake of the shocking development, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer revealed the reason behind WWE’s sudden move to nix the show on Twitter.
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As mentioned above, Talking Smack has been one of the most refreshing offerings from the WWE ever since the brand split came into existence. With a popular host in Renee Young and the appearances of Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan, the show gave a platform to SmackDown superstars to showcase a different side of their characters.
The promo work on the show seemed realistic and genuine as compared to the overly scripted promos cut during SmackDown. The most famous example of this is The Miz, who cut one of the best promos of the year when he went on a passionate rant about Daniel Bryan and how mistreated he was in recent years.
Many claim it breathed new life into his career and kick-started a resurgence for the former WWE Champion.
The heart of the matter
According to Meltzer, Talking Smack wasn’t getting the required viewership for it to be on air and thus, WWE found it imperative to pull the plug on it and substitute it with another show on the Network. The reason comes as a big surprise as the show garnered quite a lot of attention and by the looks of it, clocked in more viewers than 205 Live.
While 205 Live continues to stay afloat, Talking Smack and another one of Renee Young's projects – Unfiltered, got axed.
What was even more surprising is that WWE didn’t inform Renee Young, Daniel Bryan and any of the superstars involved in the decision until the announcement was made. This move obviously didn’t go down too well with the stars who invested a lot in the project and it showed in their tweets.
Reactions
Here’s how the stars reacted to the news:
Author’s take
I, like a majority of the fans, didn’t see this coming. Talking Smack gave talents the freedom to experiment and it always delivered. This goes to show WWE still doesn’t realise what the fans actually want and instead, focus on the larger scheme of things.
Hopefully, WWE introduces fresh content on the Network to make up for the big loss.
Ex WWE writer blasts Liv Morgan HERE
