Fans hoping to see WWE SmackDown revert back to two hours may have been given an indication as to when the switch will happen.
As announced by the USA Network on June 17th, The Rainmaker will premiere on the channel on Friday, August 15th at 10 pm. As SmackDown currently runs each Friday on the USA Network from 8 pm until 11 pm, it appears that The Rainmaker will now be in place of the third hour.
USA Network said the following about the upcoming show:
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).
While fans of NJPW and AEW associate the Rainmaker moniker with Kazuchika Okada, the series has nothing to do with the Japanese wrestler and is instead based on John Grisham’s novel of the same name.
When Was WWE SmackDown Extended Beyond Two Hours?
SmackDown first moved to three hours at the start of 2025 with the January 3rd show being the first of the extended era. The move was met with a mixed response from fans as they felt that three hours was too much for a pro wrestling show each week, especially with all the other weekly content produced by WWE. The Friday night show has also seen a decline in ratings in 2025, which may be attributed to the move. While it was previously reported that SmackDown would revert back to two hours in June, this has not happened, and it was instead noted that the show would remain with an extended runtime for the foreseeable future.
It was also reported that the reason for the extension was because the USA Network did not have a show for the 10 pm Friday night slot at that time.
Featured image: WWE
