WWE's Michael Cole revealed on the December 12 episode of SmackDown that the blue brand would officially return to a three-hour format beginning with tonight’s January 2 show.
It’s a long-awaited change, and one that has been met with far more skepticism than excitement, given where SmackDown currently stands creatively. The show is in the midst of one of the most stagnant eras in its history.
The brand is a weekly creative vacuum that drains momentum from nearly everyone it touches. From top stars like Cody Rhodes to the middle and bottom of the card, very few performers have escaped the gravitational pull of that creative stagnation, so to speak.
It's a far cry from what SmackDown once represented. For years, the blue brand carried the reputation as “the land of opportunity,” a place where underutilized talent could find their footing and legitimately get over.
That identity has been lost for a while now, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily dead. In a strange way, a show this creatively devoid of direction still leaves room for possibility. More time doesn’t fix bad booking, but it can create space, and space is something SmackDown has been lacking.
Whether WWE actually takes advantage of that extra hour remains to be seen. Still, with a new year underway and fresh call-ups like Trick Williams and Lash Legend joining the brand, there’s at least a path for opportunity to matter again.
If SmackDown is ever going to live up to that old reputation, this could be the moment the tide starts to shift in the other direction, and these WWE superstars could stand to benefit the most.
SmackDown's extra hour could save these WWE careers
1. The Street Profits
Few acts have been hurt more by SmackDown’s creative stagnation than The Street Profits, and the collapse of the brand’s tag team division is at the center of it. What was once SmackDown’s greatest strength has effectively been held hostage by The Wyatt Sicks.
The group can absolutely serve a purpose on the roster, but building the entire tag scene around them has unsurprisingly proven to be a colossal failure. The division has no creative in-ring direction, and in the process, top-tier teams like The Street Profits have been left behind.
Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins have a legitimate case as the best tag team in American wrestling. Their athleticism, chemistry, and charisma are unmatched, yet their usage over the past few years — particularly under Triple H’s creative direction — has been borderline embarrassing.
They have essentially gone missing since losing the tag titles to the Wyatts in July. A poorly built rematch on the October 10 episode of SmackDown in Perth was followed by total disappearance. They've wrestled one match since then, a five-minute bout with Los Garza on an October episode of Main Event.
That’s unacceptable and flat-out malpractice. The extra hour on SmackDown doesn’t fix broken priorities, but it does remove excuses. There’s no justification for prioritizing creative dead ends while a team like the Street Profits rides the bench.
If SmackDown wants to reclaim even a fraction of its old “land of opportunity” identity, Ford and Dawkins should be at the center of that effort as one of its featured acts. Build the show around them.
2. Giulia
If anyone embodies the damage SmackDown’s creative black hole can do, it’s Giulia. Not long ago in NXT, Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer were positioned on equal footing, as two international standouts framed as the future of WWE’s women’s division.
Giulia was heralded as a massive signing from Japan. Vaquer was sent to Raw, allowed to flourish, and is now the reigning Women’s World Champion. Giulia, meanwhile, received the unfortunate honor of being sent to SmackDown, and their diverging trajectories are direct evidence of the absurd creative gap between the two brands.
Giulia was given the Women’s United States Championship, but it was one of the most forgettable title reigns in recent memory, largely because she was barely on television. She was never given a real opportunity to connect with the audience.
The forced pairing with Kiana James has done nothing, as crowds continue to respond to Giulia’s appearances with near-total silence. Then WWE compounded the damage by having her lose the title to Chelsea Green in roughly 90 seconds. She became a punchline.
Since then, Giulia has been stuck in limbo. She hasn’t had a televised match longer than five minutes since October 10, and she hasn’t wrestled a singles match over ten minutes on TV since August 1. That’s creative malpractice.
WWE hasn’t allowed her to establish a character, despite brief glimpses showing she can be charismatic and genuinely endearing. Instead, she’s been presented as a generic heel who was embarrassed by a comedy act, and her momentum never recovered.
Maybe, just maybe, the extra hour gives SmackDown enough breathing room to undo some of that damage. Because right now, Giulia’s WWE career already feels like it’s on life support, and no one has been failed more thoroughly by this version of SmackDown than her.
3. Trick Williams
Putting Trick Williams on a list like this feels strange at first, considering his main roster run has barely begun. But in many ways, his WWE career is already at a crossroads. Williams debuted in NXT back in 2021 and spent more than four years in developmental doing just about everything there was to do.
He’s a two-time NXT Champion, a former North American Champion, an Iron Survivor Challenge winner, and even held the TNA World Championship this year. By any reasonable standard, his call-up was overdue.
At the same time, however, it never quite felt like he was fully ready. Williams has always been a fascinating paradox. He's a wrestler with sky-high upside, a perfect look, size, and natural charisma that jumps off the screen, but an in-ring game that has felt...subpar.
That’s likely why WWE waited as long as it did. Still, you can only be a “prospect” for so long. After half a decade in developmental, you either sink or swim.
Now officially expected to land on SmackDown, this is Williams’ moment to prove he belongs. He may still be rough around the edges, but WWE history is filled with performers who thrived because their charisma and presence outweighed their early in-ring shortcomings. Williams fits that mold.
With the extra hour, SmackDown has an opportunity to lean into youth and potential, not just with Williams, but with other NXT standouts like Je'Von Evans, Lash Legend, and eventually even someone like Ethan Page.
If SmackDown truly wants to reclaim that elusive “land of opportunity” identity, going all-in on fresh NXT call-ups is a logical place to start. And if that happens, Trick Williams has a real chance to become one of the brand’s featured acts, especially with the extra hour of programming.
4. Rey Fenix
The contrast between Rey Fenix and Penta feels eerily similar to the Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer split earlier in this piece. One brother was sent to Raw and immediately felt like a star. The other landed on SmackDown and promptly vanished into creative purgatory.
Penta may have slid down the Raw card slightly, but he still has a defined character, remains one of the company’s top merch sellers, and is presented like someone who matters. Fenix, meanwhile, has been reduced to “just a guy,” endlessly shuffled through random tag teams without any direction.
It's an embarrassing waste of talent. Fenix has barely been allowed to wrestle singles matches at all. His most recent one came in November against Talla Tonga of the MFTs in a glorified squash that said everything about SmackDown’s current creative priorities.
It’s hard to imagine a more humiliating use of a performer who might be the best pure in-ring luchador in WWE. Fenix is a high-flying dynamo who routinely excites crowds, yet SmackDown has shown no interest in letting him actually showcase that skill set.
The last time he was truly able to showcase his talents was back in September, when he delivered a standout match against Sami Zayn during Zayn’s U.S. Open Challenge run. Since then, meaningful opportunities have been nonexistent.
That’s unacceptable for someone with Fenix’s ability. The men’s midcard on SmackDown has become painfully narrow, revolving almost exclusively around the United States Championship.
The extra hour won’t magically fix SmackDown’s creative issues, but it does create space. Space for Rey Fenix to wrestle. Space for weekly bangers against guys like Carmelo Hayes or Aleister Black.
SmackDown has stripped away nearly all of Fenix’s aura since his arrival from AEW, but there’s still time to recalibrate. If WWE is serious about maximizing its roster, Rey Fenix should be treated as the attraction he's already proven he can be, not an afterthought stuck in midcard irrelevancy.