WWE News: Weekly Show Cancelled Without Explanation, NXT Live Shows Cut Down In 2020
Right now, WWE has more active brands than they have ever had in their history and that could bring about some issues for the promotion. On Friday, WWE cancelled this week’s episode of 205 Live. While an exact reason has not yet been given, rumors received a bit of strength that the brand could be in trouble. This cancellation plays into other rumors flying around that WWE could seriously cut down on the number of NXT live events next year.
Ever since the complete brand split and Superstar Draft made changes to the WWE roster, 205 Live has found a home on Friday nights. It has been airing on the WWE Network after Friday Night SmackDown and giving a new home to its high-flying superstars.
There has been speculation that the brand would end up merging with NXT and becoming one bigger brand, but that hasn’t officially happened. While the title for 205 Live has been changed to the NXT Cruiserweight Championship, the brands have still been kept separated to some extent.
The official Twitter account of WWE confirmed on Friday afternoon that there would be no 205 Live episode airing from the Allstate Arena near Chicago tonight. Instead of a new episode, the WWE Network will be airing an encore presentation of this week’s NXT at 10 p.m. Eastern.
The scheduled airing of 205 Live will not take place tonight.
Tune into @WWENetwork right after #SmackDown for an encore presentation of @WWENXT.
— WWE (@WWE) November 22, 2019
Without any kind of explanation given as to the cancellation, fans have to be wondering what is going on with 205 Live. This does play into the speculation that WWE could end up doing away with the show entirely and dispersing the roster among the other brands within the promotion.
Along with the issues facing the purple brand, Wrestling Inc. reports that WWE is considering cutting down on some NXT live events in 2020. With live attendance down across all brands for WWE this year, some things need to be done to cut costs and make up for financial losses.
In the third quarter of this year, 42 NXT events were held with a paid attendance of 29,000. That is considerably down from the 46 events run in the third quarter of 2018 which brought in a paid attendance of 37,600.
WWE ended up suffering a loss of 23 percent in attendance from just one year to the next.
Even though some expensive aspects of live events have been brought back, like pyro, WWE is still needing to cut its losses. While not yet confirmed, cutting some NXT brand live events and doing away with 205 Live may be a way to do just that. The cancellation of this week’s show from the purple brand is only another sign that the end may be near.
