What's the point of Smackdown?

Fresh from a stint in rehab, recovering from a crippling addiction to Refreshers, I'm ba-aaack!

So, whilst having my weekly viewing of Friday Night Smackdown, struggling to stay awake, away from the sugary lure of Refreshers and their fizzy loveliness, it struck me...

What exactly is the point of Smackdown these days? most of the roster fills airtime on Raw. most of the matches that take place are set up on Raw. The UK show has a 'From the Vault' match to make up for the incessant add-breaks in the US, so the delights of SuperFly Jimmy Snuka attacked my eyeballs this week. There's the repeating of every major angle from Raw, a main event tag match which certainly took me by surprise, a main event tag match is such an unusual occurrence on the blue brand. A thrown together champion vs champion match that existed only to show that Kofi's contract must be up soon, so it's time for his yearly push before we forget all about him. More Raw repeats...

And a mixed tag match that was constructed over the hot issue of the day... someone having their parking space stolen. As much as I appreciate that occasionally it's nice to see that the Colons are still employed, all this did was make me roll my eyes like I'd just defended my Streak at Wrestlemania.

Smackdown is supposed to be the B show. On recent evidence, I shall henceforth be referring to it as Raw Number 2. With emphasis on the 'Number 2' and all the fecal matter puns that entails.

Smackdown is now as utterly pointless as a positive steroid test near John Cena. I don't know why they still bother.

me neither really tbh. most weeks nowadays I forget smackdown is even on let alone remember to watch it. the matches on smackdown tend to be longer and therefore better than on raw but that's the only difference really.

Excellent point.

There was a time when Smackers was better than RAW but since the 3 hour extension of RAW, Smackers has becme the equivalent of Sunday night Heat.

Either do a brand split or don't.

I bought refreshers last Tuesday. Legen...wait for it...Dary.

HIMYM REFERENCE

hey adam hypothetical high five...

NICE!

If you want a show worse than TNA then I point you to How I Met Your Monica, sorry I mean Mother its not trying to be Friends at all.

Smackdown and Main Event together make up a reasonably decent wrestling show, so as long as you have fast forward handy then its fine. Smackdown did ok this week, but I had my FF to save me from the bad parts

I feel this is an appropriate time to reveal to the world that Adam once mocked me for making an Alan Partridge reference.

It's a shame as only a few years ago Smackdown was probably better than Raw in many respects. It didn't have the mainstream attention of Raw, so wasn't as obsessed with trying to appeal to the mainstream and focused on fairly good storylines and wrestling. I mean from '05 the brand was very strong, with the likes of Undertaker, Edge, CM Punk, Jeff Hardy, Rey Mysterio, Batista, Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Angle, Big Show, Kane, MVP, JBL all having long spells on the brand making it a very strong brand.

Since the brand split was effectively ended, it's become a pretty much pointless show which repeats the Raw angles, has very little effect on WWE as a whole and feels like a Raw-lite with all the same angles, storylines and matches from Raw without the big names.

I think Smackdown as a show becomes redundant without a brand split and a 3 hour Raw. Even though Raw isn't billed as a SuperShow anymore, it essentially is and this means Smackdown can't really offer anything that isn't on Raw.

I find it amusing how many people clamoured for the brand split to end despite it at the time having the bonus of the excitement of the draft, that each show felt different, that in SD you often got quite more of a wrestling show feel.
Now its clearly such an afterthought.

I'd make SD a cruiserweight/tag team show

Hero wrote:I find it amusing how many people clamoured for the brand split to end despite it at the time having the bonus of the excitement of the draft, that each show felt different, that in SD you often got quite more of a wrestling show feel.
Now its clearly such an afterthought.

I was always in favour of the brand split, in fact I wanted to see WWE make it go back to independent pay per views and strict enforcement of staying on the right brand. I think it makes sense from a wrestling point of view, it means you don't get oversaturated with the same faces all week, seeing repetitive matches and very similar version of events on each brand. I also think it gave mid-carders are much better chance to shine, so for example, now there is limited space on the pay per view and you end up not having space for the mid card titles to be defended, with brand separated pay per views you did.

I think the issue is that from a business point of view it didn't make sense, I'm not 100% sure but I imagine Smackdown's ratings were much lower than Raws, so this in turn meant pay per view buys for Smackdown PPVs were also lower, and Smackdown house shows sold less tickets. WWE marketed it as the 'B Show' which was ridiculous because I was always a much bigger fan of Smackdown than Raw, I think it had better stories, better wrestlers and a better feel to it than Raw.

These days I don't think there are enough big names to constitute a full brand split. Who are the big full time names in WWE? Cena, Punk, Orton, Sheamus? So Smackdown gets Punk, Sheamus, Raw gets Cena and Orton? There aren't enough big names to have good, long storylines and WWE can't risk a few months of having no stars so they can build some up as people would stop watching. They've booked and organised themselves into a corner where they don't actually have enough time to effectively build some stars up, despite having 3 hours of Raw and 2 hours of Smackdown as well as Main Event to work with.

If they dared do anything with the IC and US titles then Smackdown would be worth its spot too. They dont fill much TV time even when they are on the shows, a few actual feuds and some different types of matches would do it no end of good. Smackdown was really important for Del Rio's face turn, the effort they put in to get him over Big Show should have encouraged to be more innovative, instead they settled again. That Last Man Standing match was brilliant, even with the spoilers cos its taped, and matches with stips would definitely open the show up and some lower level feuds too.

I have never much liked the idea of the brand split and its one of the reasons I stopped watching originally. Thus, I missed the strong period for the concept and I came back to find it as a nonsense. They dont have the talent for it just yet, although I would never be in favour of brand separation PPVs.

I think a smackdown where they go back to how it was say from 2002-2008 would be great for the product. Titles on SD could be:

WHC
IC title
Divas title
cruiserweight division

Raw:
WWE title
US title
Tag Team championships

Mid carders could be given more of a chance to shine in main event matches on SD and better wrestling matches can be put on, like in the old days. Raw can still have the big guys but guys like Ziggler can truly be the start of the show on SD along with other guys coming up from development. Be nice to see Tyson Kidd in the cruiserweight division also.

I have never liked the brand split or having 2 titles, perhaps its because I still think of the best days of wrestling being when smackdown was first aired in Sept 99' and it added so much to all what was going on at the time. Also at that time you had every wwe wrestler on it from top to bottom, now you dont get the likes of Cena and Punk on it which hurts it. Thats why I argue to only have one title.

I have never understood and even more so now that the split seems to be over and doesnt get talked about on wwe tv, why Cena isn't on it, because he is at the house shows but not the second tv show. It does baffle me.

Crimey wrote:

Hero wrote:I find it amusing how many people clamoured for the brand split to end despite it at the time having the bonus of the excitement of the draft, that each show felt different, that in SD you often got quite more of a wrestling show feel.
Now its clearly such an afterthought.

I was always in favour of the brand split, in fact I wanted to see WWE make it go back to independent pay per views and strict enforcement of staying on the right brand. I think it makes sense from a wrestling point of view, it means you don't get oversaturated with the same faces all week, seeing repetitive matches and very similar version of events on each brand. I also think it gave mid-carders are much better chance to shine, so for example, now there is limited space on the pay per view and you end up not having space for the mid card titles to be defended, with brand separated pay per views you did.

I think the issue is that from a business point of view it didn't make sense, I'm not 100% sure but I imagine Smackdown's ratings were much lower than Raws, so this in turn meant pay per view buys for Smackdown PPVs were also lower, and Smackdown house shows sold less tickets. WWE marketed it as the 'B Show' which was ridiculous because I was always a much bigger fan of Smackdown than Raw, I think it had better stories, better wrestlers and a better feel to it than Raw.

These days I don't think there are enough big names to constitute a full brand split. Who are the big full time names in WWE? Cena, Punk, Orton, Sheamus? So Smackdown gets Punk, Sheamus, Raw gets Cena and Orton? There aren't enough big names to have good, long storylines and WWE can't risk a few months of having no stars so they can build some up as people would stop watching. They've booked and organised themselves into a corner where they don't actually have enough time to effectively build some stars up, despite having 3 hours of Raw and 2 hours of Smackdown as well as Main Event to work with.

You are kidding right!?

Back when they did that in 03/04/05, imo it was the worst period of wwe in all its 30 year history. the main events you got for those papv's were so weak. Thats what put me off afor a number of years.

bretmeharty wrote:

Crimey wrote:

Hero wrote:I find it amusing how many people clamoured for the brand split to end despite it at the time having the bonus of the excitement of the draft, that each show felt different, that in SD you often got quite more of a wrestling show feel.
Now its clearly such an afterthought.

I was always in favour of the brand split, in fact I wanted to see WWE make it go back to independent pay per views and strict enforcement of staying on the right brand. I think it makes sense from a wrestling point of view, it means you don't get oversaturated with the same faces all week, seeing repetitive matches and very similar version of events on each brand. I also think it gave mid-carders are much better chance to shine, so for example, now there is limited space on the pay per view and you end up not having space for the mid card titles to be defended, with brand separated pay per views you did.

I think the issue is that from a business point of view it didn't make sense, I'm not 100% sure but I imagine Smackdown's ratings were much lower than Raws, so this in turn meant pay per view buys for Smackdown PPVs were also lower, and Smackdown house shows sold less tickets. WWE marketed it as the 'B Show' which was ridiculous because I was always a much bigger fan of Smackdown than Raw, I think it had better stories, better wrestlers and a better feel to it than Raw.

These days I don't think there are enough big names to constitute a full brand split. Who are the big full time names in WWE? Cena, Punk, Orton, Sheamus? So Smackdown gets Punk, Sheamus, Raw gets Cena and Orton? There aren't enough big names to have good, long storylines and WWE can't risk a few months of having no stars so they can build some up as people would stop watching. They've booked and organised themselves into a corner where they don't actually have enough time to effectively build some stars up, despite having 3 hours of Raw and 2 hours of Smackdown as well as Main Event to work with.

You are kidding right!?

Back when they did that in 03/04/05, imo it was the worst period of wwe in all its 30 year history. the main events you got for those papv's were so weak. Thats what put me off afor a number of years.

No, I think it makes perfect sense when you have a big roster to have a proper brand split. I know I'm in the minority, most were calling for the brand split to end, but we're in the era of the brand split being ended now and WWE are struggling more than ever to get stars over.

Crimey wrote:

bretmeharty wrote:

Crimey wrote:

Hero wrote:I find it amusing how many people clamoured for the brand split to end despite it at the time having the bonus of the excitement of the draft, that each show felt different, that in SD you often got quite more of a wrestling show feel.
Now its clearly such an afterthought.

I was always in favour of the brand split, in fact I wanted to see WWE make it go back to independent pay per views and strict enforcement of staying on the right brand. I think it makes sense from a wrestling point of view, it means you don't get oversaturated with the same faces all week, seeing repetitive matches and very similar version of events on each brand. I also think it gave mid-carders are much better chance to shine, so for example, now there is limited space on the pay per view and you end up not having space for the mid card titles to be defended, with brand separated pay per views you did.

I think the issue is that from a business point of view it didn't make sense, I'm not 100% sure but I imagine Smackdown's ratings were much lower than Raws, so this in turn meant pay per view buys for Smackdown PPVs were also lower, and Smackdown house shows sold less tickets. WWE marketed it as the 'B Show' which was ridiculous because I was always a much bigger fan of Smackdown than Raw, I think it had better stories, better wrestlers and a better feel to it than Raw.

These days I don't think there are enough big names to constitute a full brand split. Who are the big full time names in WWE? Cena, Punk, Orton, Sheamus? So Smackdown gets Punk, Sheamus, Raw gets Cena and Orton? There aren't enough big names to have good, long storylines and WWE can't risk a few months of having no stars so they can build some up as people would stop watching. They've booked and organised themselves into a corner where they don't actually have enough time to effectively build some stars up, despite having 3 hours of Raw and 2 hours of Smackdown as well as Main Event to work with.

You are kidding right!?

Back when they did that in 03/04/05, imo it was the worst period of wwe in all its 30 year history. the main events you got for those papv's were so weak. Thats what put me off afor a number of years.

No, I think it makes perfect sense when you have a big roster to have a proper brand split. I know I'm in the minority, most were calling for the brand split to end, but we're in the era of the brand split being ended now and WWE are struggling more than ever to get stars over.

I think that points to a bigger problem which is get rid of the world title, end the brand split completely and have every wwe guy on both shows with 5 hours of tv time there should not be any reason to not build guys and develop good matches and build up.

I'm a halfway house person on it.

I liked the brand split but the PPVs still needed to be both shows involved. I liked the brand loyalty as well that it brought about, let the SD lot feel insecure about being the perceived 2nd show, make them as a result showcase themselves more to try and get onto the biggie of RAW.

I disliked the brand separation and I also am firmly against two world titles, the later devalues the WHC and the IC/US belts heavily, right now the mid card titles mean little to nothing, an IC title match should be a big deal IMO a raw main event but the life have been sucked out of what was once an extremely prestigious title.

Unify the world titles and then build up the mid card titles to mean something and I don't mean putting the IC strap on Jericho that does nothing for the title anymore.

Ziggler fans may think he's finally grabbed the brass ring but in reality he's far from done anything like smashing the glass cealing. WHC is the new IC level which is a shame considering the past greats that made that title just that...great, ric flair, dusty Rhodes, booker T etc etc.

In regards to a brand split, if its going to happen it needs to be done right why botch it into something that has no heart, no soul and something that means very little, which is what we currently have!

I would merge the main World titles on RAW and then elevate the Intercontinental title to be the main title on SD, stick all tag teams there as well and relaunched Cruiserweight title. Stick the US title exclusively on RAW as well as the Divas.

It's quite simple for me, Smackdown just needs more star power. Rewind to when the likes of Edge, Batista, Jeff Hardy and CM Punk were WHC Champions on Smackdown it was probably the better show. They need one big name to build the show around and his name is Randy Orton. Orton can make the title important again with a lengthy reign.

Triple H once said 'The title doesnt make the guy, the guy makes the title', and he is completely right. Sticking the title on Del Rio or Ziggler doesnt automatically mean they've made it, THEY have to make the title a title before they make it. And for me it doesnt matter how hard Del Rio or Ziggler might try they'll never make the WHC a big deal in my eyes. They simply aren't world title calibre superstars. Randy Orton is a world title calibre superstar.

If Randy Orton won the WHC and somehow engaged in a fued with Brock Lesnar, imagine what an Orton v Lesnar match for the WHC at Summerslam would do for the status of the WHC? Then maybe a fued with the likes of Daniel Bryan and Ryback. It would p*ss all over what we're being fed at the moment and would instantly make Smackdown more watchable.

They tried that before though, Orton was essentially made the star of Smackdown and it flopped. His feud with Christian was alright, but it certainly didn't make Smackdown or the World Heavyweight Title feel as important as it had just 2 years before.

The way to fix Smackdown is to completely end the brand split rather than drag up its carcass. Put the bigger names on there and make it more important, but also make sure theres no repeat matches or stories from the midcard and tags. I dont mind the Raw recaps, its an earlier show and some kids might not get to see Raw, but there are very few excuses for doing the same match twice in a week. This should all be leading up to a top title unification match at Mania.

I pretty much agree with BretMeHarty, Smackdown was great in 99/00 etc but lost it when they tried being too expansive.

The WHC is a shell of its former self, Cena is booked stronger without the WWE title than the WH champion has been for years, The pool of talent or rather pool of big names isn’t there anymore to justify a brand split or two world titles. By consistently building the one world title you would instantly get that big fight feel when the title is on the line and have that glass ceiling smashing moments that propel stars into super stardom.

Smackdown could be great again given the right mixture of talent but the way wwe has booked its mid carders in recent years makes it very hard for a fan to buy into the likes of Ziggler as a credible world champion which can carry or headline a show, which is why he has been given the b title, if this run bombs who will care it can be swept under the carpet and forgotten about.

They pretty much devalued the WHC on CM Punk’s Best in the World DVD. Punk, HHH and others pretty much said that even though Punk won the WHC three times it wasn’t really a big deal and only since ‘the’ promo has Punk been taken seriously. They basically said his previous WHC title wins were a bit ‘meh, whatever’.

I think in a nutshell that the WWE simply don’t have enough full time top level stars to make 2 world titles seem a big deal. We’ve gone from HHH v Batista for the WHC to Del Rio v Swagger. Imagine a full time talent pool of Cena, Punk, Orton, Taker, HHH, Brock, Rock and Jericho. Half of them on Raw, half on Smackdown. Problem solved.

It goes back to the old argument of the WWE not building new stars to replace the seemingly irreplaceable.

I remember back when the split first occurred Smackdown for me was the better show, with the likes of Lesnar, Taker, Angle, Eddie and Benoit. Nowadays though its pretty much become like Sunday night Heat. Just a mid card show.