How to Watch The First Night of SmackDown on USA Network and What to Expect

After months of waiting, SmackDown is finally coming back home to USA Network — Friday, September 13, is a date every member of the WWE Universe has marked on their calendars, and the day is finally here.

The first night of SmackDown on USA Network promises to be the most explosive and unpredictable episode of 2024 — here's how to watch it!

How to watch the WWE SmackDown on USA Network

Catching the September 13 episode of SmackDown is as easy as tuning in to USA Network at 8/7c this Friday!

We're sure the WWE Universe has the whole "tune into USA Network at 8/7c" thing down to a science — after all, the fans have been doing it every Monday night for as long as they can remember for Raw.

In fact, USA Network is now officially the exclusive home of WWE's Raw and SmackDown until the end of 2024 — and SmackDown isn't going anywhere anytime soon. 

If you want to watch these new SmackDown episodes a bit later on Peacock, they'll be dropping 30 days after their premiere date.

Where is WWE SmackDown's first night on USA Network taking place?

SmackDown will be broadcast live from Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington. The arena is special — just over two years ago, WWE brought SmackDown to Climate Pledge Arena. The WWE Universe witnessed a chaotic main event featuring Drew McIntyre going one-on-one with The Bloodline's Solo Sikoa!

Although McIntyre walked away with a win, it came at a cost: the former World Heavyweight Champion ended the night being choked out by Karrion Kross!

Fans in attendance on September 13 will notice that the more things change, the more things stay the same in WWE — Sikoa will once again fight in the night's main event on September 13 in a match that is WrestleMania-worthy.

WWE Smackdown on USA Premiere Match Card

Although Cody Rhodes successfully defended the Undisputed WWE Championship against Solo Sikoa in the past, he'll face his most brutal defense yet as he and Sikoa go around the block one more time in the main event of the first SmackDown on USA Network in nearly a decade — inside a steel cage.

After making the match official on the September 6 edition of SmackDown, General Manager Nick Aldis revealed that he thought "this whole Bloodline numbers-game thing, it's getting a little old, bad for business" before coming up with a solution: locking both champion and challenger inside a steel cage!

Matches like these don't happen often, especially with the Undisputed WWE Championship on the line — but SmackDown's return to USA Network is guaranteed to have a cage match for a main event on September 13. It doesn't get any better than that for the WWE Universe — although we wish we could say the same for Cody Rhodes.

(Something tells us that, somehow, The Bloodline will figure out a way to interfere in the match despite the cage making it logistically impossible to do so. Let's all hope Cody has backup if needed!)

How's that for a main event for the biggest SmackDown of 2024?