WWE SmackDown
| WWE SmackDown | |
|---|---|
| File:Fridaynightsmackdown.png | |
| Created by | Vince McMahon |
| Starring | SmackDown! brand |
| Opening theme | "Rise Up 2006" by Drowning Pool |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of seasons | 9 (as of September 21, 2007) |
| No. of episodes | 422 (as of September 21, 2007) |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multicamera setup |
| Running time | 2 hours per episode (1 hour 25 minutes plus commercials) |
| Original release | |
| Network | UPN (1999–2006) The CW (2006–Present) |
| Release | August 26 1999 – Present |
WWE Friday Night SmackDown! is a professional wrestling television program for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and is currently the only television broadcast for the SmackDown! brand. The SmackDown! stars typically perform four shows in a week. WWE usually tapes it Tuesday evening show for The CW to air on Friday evening of the same week. However, the show is occasionally taped on Monday nights prior to RAW, and is also rarely held live. From its launch in 1999, SmackDown! was shown on Thursday nights, but as of September 9 2005, the show moved to Friday nights. To reflect this change, the show is now referred to as Friday Night SmackDown!.
It currently airs in the United States on The CW, in Canada on The Score Network and on CH Montreal,in Turkey on S'nek, in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan on Ten Sports, in Germany on DSF, in the UK and Republic of Ireland on Sky Sports 3, in Portugal on TVI, in the Dominican Republic on Antena Latina Channel 7, in Puerto Rico on Televicentro and on The CW, in Chile on Chilevisión, in Mexico on 52MX, in Australia on FOX8, in New Zealand on Sky 1, in the Philippines on Jack TV and RPN, in Peru on ATV , in Spain on Cuatro, in Romania on TV Sport, in Serbia on FOX Televizija, in Saudi Arabia and Arab World on Showtime Arabia ShowSports 1, in France on NT1, in Japan on J Sports, on e.tv in South Africa, on MTV3 MAX in Finland, on AFN Xtra, on VTV in El Salvador and on Canal 9 on Argentina.
History
SmackDown! first appeared on April 29, 1999 as a single television special on UPN. On August 26, 1999, SmackDown! officially debuted on UPN, in Kansas City, Missouri. Like WCW Thunder, SmackDown! was recorded on Tuesdays and then broadcast on Thursdays. The new WWF show was so popular that WCW moved Thunder to Wednesdays in the hope of holding on to fans rather than losing them to the WWF. SmackDown!, like Thunder, made heavy use of the color blue, earning it the nickname "The Blue Show" amongst wrestling fans.
The first SmackDown! set was unique as it featured an oval-shaped TitanTron (which was dubbed the "OvalTron"), entrance and stage which made it stand out from the RAW set and its rectangular TitanTrons. An added feature to the original set was the ability for the OvalTron to be moved to either the left or right of the stage. Throughout the show's early existence, top WWF superstar The Rock routinely called SmackDown! "his" show, in reference to the fact that the name was derived from one of his catchphrases, "Laying the smack down." In August 2001, as part of celebrating SmackDown!'s second anniversary, the show received its current logo and set. The last SmackDown! to use the previous television set saw Alliance member Rhyno deliver the Gore to WWF member Chris Jericho through the OvalTron, destroying part of the set.
The September 11 2001 event was canceled due to the terrorist attacks. On September 13 2001, SmackDown! was broadcast live from Houston, Texas (with Jim Ross and Paul Heyman filling in as hosts for Michael Cole and Tazz) as the first major and televised event since the attacks as thousands were in attendance. The ring ropes are usually blue for the SmackDown! shows, but were red, white and blue for this night; these colors were commonly used during the 1980s and 1990s. They remained that way, with an American flag on the mini-tron, for two weeks.
Brand Extension
The WWF underwent something they called the "Brand Extension". This meant that the two WWF TV shows (RAW and SmackDown!) would become competition for each other. This came about after the WWF purchased their biggest competitor, WCW, and they decided to bring in talent from the then out-of-business ECW. The brand extension was publicly announced during a telecast of WWF RAW on March 25 2002, and became official the next day.
The Brand Extension would bring about change like nothing the WWF had seen before. Wrestlers would become "show-exclusive", wrestling for their specific show only. At the time, this excluded the Undisputed Champion and Women's Champion as those titles were originally defended on both shows. However, later in 2002, Brock Lesnar, then the WWE Undisputed Champion, refused to defend the title on RAW, causing the title to become SmackDown!-exclusive. This forced Eric Bischoff (General Manager of RAW at the time) to create the World Heavyweight Championship due to the fact that since the WWE Undisputed Championship was now SmackDown! exclusive it was no longer seen as "undisputed".
The SmackDown! brand had a sister show, Velocity, that consisted of lower-card matches and recaps of that week's SmackDown! On March 10 2005, Viacom announced that they would not seek to extend their deal to air WWE programming on Spike TV when it expired in September 2005. This included Velocity, which formerly aired on Spike TV but was converted into a webcast on WWE's website, when WWE programming moved to the USA Network. It was possible that WWE's "lame duck" status with Viacom on Spike TV is what prompted its moving SmackDown! to the Friday night death slot for the Fall 2005 season. However, it worked out for both parties involved, as the show did better in the ratings than it had on Thursdays, while UPN received much better ratings on Fridays than it did before, with its movie night. In addition, UPN has been able to hold on to the ratings from Thursday nights, most notably with comedian Chris Rock's Wonder Years-like sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. In January 2006, prior to the announcement of the CW Network, it was announced that UPN had renewed SmackDown! for two more years.[1]
On June 6 2005, WWE Champion John Cena switched brands from SmackDown! to RAW as part of the month-long Draft Lottery. This effectively left SmackDown! without a World Title. During this time, United States Champion Orlando Jordan was billed as the top champion on the show. On June 23 2005, in Tucson, SmackDown! General Manager Theodore Long announced a six-man elimination match between John "Bradshaw" Layfield, Booker T, Chris Benoit, The Undertaker, Christian (replacing The Big Show, who was picked by RAW in the lottery), and Muhammad Hassan to crown the first SmackDown! Champion. On the June 30 episode of SmackDown!, JBL won the match. Long appeared afterward and stated that even though JBL had won the match, SmackDown! did not need a Championship anymore. Batista, the World Heavyweight Champion, entered the ring as SmackDown!'s final draft lottery pick. Long also revealed that JBL was the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship.
On July 7 2005, the day of the London bombings, SmackDown! (which had been taped two days earlier) aired a match between the Undertaker and Daivari, the manager of Muhammad Hassan. A group of masked men came to the ring and attacked Undertaker, using piano wire to throttle him, and were identified as "terrorists". This led to complaints against WWE for airing the attack on a day when sensitivities about terrorism were particularly heightened.[2]
Friday Night SmackDown!
Following the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, SmackDown! was renamed Friday Night SmackDown! and moved into Enterprise's former timeslot in the United States. WWE promoted this move with the tagline "TV that's changing Friday nights." Friday Night SmackDown! made its season premiere on September 9, 2005. The program still aired on Thursdays in Canada on the Score. In the United Kingdom and Australia, their stations Sky Sports and FOX8 air SmackDown! on Fridays before the United States due to the time difference. This is the first time a major weekly WWE show airs internationally before it hits screens in the U.S.
The events of Hurricane Katrina affected the first edition of Friday Night SmackDown! in the U.S. Due to a special fundraising concert (see Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast) that aired on UPN at the same time that the first edition would have been broadcast, resulting in only the second hour of the show being shown on UPN. The first hour was instead streamed from WWE's website. Other countries, including Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and the Philippines received the full two-hour show. WWOR-TV (My 9, New York, New York) also aired both hours of the show on tape delay on Saturday, due to a previous commitment to broadcast the New York Yankees on Friday nights.
At the SmackDown! taping on January 10 2006, Batista had to forfeit the World Heavyweight Championship because of a triceps injury. Theodore Long made a Battle Royal for the vacant title. The winner was at the time RAW superstar Kurt Angle, who later switched to the SmackDown! brand. In a break from their traditional role of acting as if SmackDown! is not pre-recorded, WWE.com had a photograph of Angle holding his new title on the main page. WWE also did this when Edge cashed in his Money in the Bank contract to win the World Heavyweight Championship from The Undertaker and when The Great Khali won a battle royal after Edge's injury.
On the April 7 2006 edition of SmackDown!, general manager Theodore Long announced that the King of the Ring tournament would return after a four year hiatus as a SmackDown!-exclusive tournament. The tournament ended at Judgment Day 2006 with Booker T as the winner, defeating Bobby Lashley in the final.
On June 9 2006, Tazz left SmackDown! to join the new ECW brand, leaving the color commentator position on SmackDown! vacant. However, on June 11 at One Night Stand 2006, JBL revealed that he would be the new color commentator for SmackDown!
On May 18 2007 Ozzy Osbourne performed one of his new songs from his album "Black Rain" which was called "I Don't Wanna Stop" live on SmackDown!. This was also the WWE Judgment Day theme song.
The CW Network
On September 22, 2006, Friday Night SmackDown! debuted on the The CW Television Network, a joint venture between CBS Corporation, owner of UPN, and Warner Bros. Entertainment, a subsidiary of Time Warner, majority owner of The WB.
For four weeks before the official premiere (and in preparation for the impending removal of UPN in several markets by the debut of MyNetworkTV on September 5, 2006) of Friday Night SmackDown! on the CW on September 22, 2006, Tribune Broadcasting television stations in six major markets (including WPIX in New York City and KTLA in Los Angeles) aired WWE's Friday Night SmackDown! early in September 2006.[3] Two other future affiliates of The CW, WCWJ in Jacksonville, Florida and WIWB in Green Bay, Wisconsin, also aired SmackDown! in early September as well.
The transition to the CW caused an interruption in the broadcast of SmackDown! in the state of Utah beginning in June when KPNZ in Salt Lake City stopped airing all UPN programs early. The show is now seen on KUCW. In Hawaii, SmackDown! returned in late 2006, airing on a CW digital subchannel of Honolulu's FOX affiliate KHON (Channel 2), which has received statewide carriage over Oceanic Time Warner Cable. Since the move to the CW Network, Friday Night SmackDown! has shown a major increase in ratings now averaging a 3.0 national rating. In addition, SmackDown! has become the second highest watched program on The CW (just behind America's Next Top Model and it made history for the network,
- On April 20 2007, SmackDown! celebrated its 400th episode. The event was held in Milan, Italy.
- On Friday, June 8 2007, Friday Night SmackDown! made CW history by making a three-way tie with CBS and ABC in the key ad demographic, adults 18-49 by drawing a 1.5 rating each.
- On Friday, June 22, 2007, Friday Night SmackDown! again made CW history by tying the network for first place in the key ad demographic, adults 18-49, and being the second most watched network program at 9 p.m. for the night. The CW has not performed as well at any time slot since America's Next Top Model in March 2007.
- On Friday, June 29 2007, Friday Night SmackDown! delivered for The CW to claim the top spot (without tying other networks) in the key demographic, Adults 18-49 for Friday, CBS got the overall lead but The CW got top spot for the Adults 18-49 by registering a 1.4 rating followed by CBS and NBC at 1.3 then ABC at 1.2 and FOX at 0.9.[4][5]
- On Friday, July 13, 2007, Friday Night SmackDown! delivered hugely for the CW and made network history by placing first in the 18-49 demographic and becoming the most watched show at the 9 p.m. hour on network television. This is the first time anything has placed this well on The CW.
- SmackDown! became a hit show on Friday nights winning the demographics for young males, and ranking second on the demographics (18-49) for Friday nights.
- SmackDown! started its 9th season on September 21 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia
Induction into Merriam-Webster
On July 10 2007,[6] Merriam-Webster announced it would induct the word smackdown[7] into Webster's Dictionary. According to Merriam Webster, a smackdown is:
- the act of knocking down or bringing down an opponent
- a contest in entertainment wrestling
- a decisive defeat
- a confrontation between rivals or competitors
Current champions
| Championship | Current champion(s) | Date won | Date aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Heavyweight Champion | Batista | September 16 2007 | September 16 2007 |
| United States Champion | Montel Vontavious Porter | May 20 2007 | May 20 2007 |
| WWE Cruiserweight Champion | Hornswoggle | July 22 2007 | July 22 2007 |
| WWE Tag Team Champions | Matt Hardy and Montel Vontavious Porter | August 28 2007 | August 31 2007 |
Recurring segments
In addition to wrestling matches and backstage vignettes, SmackDown! has also had several recurring segments as part of its program.
The majority of the segments on SmackDown! have been interview shows, beginning with a revival of Piper's Pit hosted by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper in 2003.[8] Piper's Pit was replaced in 2004 by the René Duprée hosted Café de René.[9] In 2005, Carlito Caribbean Cool began hosting the beach themed Carlito's Cabana,[10] which was replaced by Christian's Peep Show.[11] Mike "The Miz" Mizanin began hosting Miz TV in March 2007 until he was drafted to ECW in June 2007.[12] After winning the World Heavyweight Championship and joining the SmackDown! roster in May 2007, Edge began hosting his Cutting Edge segment until he was legitimately injured in July 2007. [13] The segment was replaced in August 2007 by the VIP Lounge hosted by Montel Vontavious Porter.[14]
Non interview segments have included the Kurt Angle Invitational, which featured Kurt Angle taking on wrestlers supposedly from whatever town the show was in that week. Additionally, $1,000,000 Tough Enough, the 2004 edition of the show, had segments featured weekly on SmackDown!.
On-air personalities
| G.M | Date Started | Date Finished |
|---|---|---|
| Stephanie McMahon | July 18, 2002 | October 19, 2003 |
| Paul Heyman | October 23, 2003 | March 22, 2004 |
| Kurt Angle | March 25, 2004 | July 22, 2004 |
| Theodore Long | July 29, 2004 | Present |
=== Assistant General Managers===
- Vickie Guerrero' - Assistant GM (May 25, 2007 - present)
Commentators
| Year(s) | Commentators |
|---|---|
| Pilot (April 1999) | Michael Cole and Jim Cornette |
| August 1999-February 2001 | Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler |
| February 2001-November 2001 | Michael Cole and Tazz |
| November 2001-March 2002 | Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler |
| March 2002-June 2006 | Michael Cole and Tazz |
| June 2006-present | Michael Cole and John "Bradshaw" Layfield |
Ring Announcers
| Ring announcer | Year(s) |
|---|---|
| Tony Chimel | Pilot episode (April 1999), August 1999-September 2007 |
| Justin Roberts | September 2007-Present |
Production
SmackDown!'s most recent theme song was "Rise Up" by Drowning Pool, a remake of Johnston's fifth anniversary instrumental. SmackDown! has used two different recordings of the song. The first recording sung by then lead singer Jason 'Gong' Jones was featured in the WWE ThemeAddict: The Music, Vol. 6 album and had numerous different edits of the theme during its use. The second and current recording, titled "Rise Up 2006" made its debut on March 24, 2006, now performed by new lead singer Ryan McCombs. "Rise Up 2006" was featured as a bonus downloadable track on the WWE Wreckless Intent album.
Special episodes
- SmackDown! Debut (August 26, 1999)
- SmackDown! Xtreme (February 1, 2001)
- 9/11 Tribute (September 13, 2001)
- Christmas from Baghdad (December 25, 2003)
- Tribute to the Troops (December 23, 2004)
- Eddie Guerrero Tribute Show (November 18, 2005)
- SmackDown! Special (November 29, 2005)
- SmackDown! 400th episode (April 20, 2007)
References
- ^ "Mixed views on WB, UPN merger". Variety.com. Retrieved 2006-08-04.
- ^ "Criticism of WWE for airing "terrorist" segment".
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ WWE, Tribune announce September SmackDown! schedule. WWE.com
- ^ Friday Night SmackDown!deliversRajah.com
- ^ WWE Ratings Come In StrongRajah.com
- ^ "msnbc.msn.com". Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ "m-w.com/dictionary/smackdown". Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - April 10, 2003". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - April 22, 2004". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - April 15, 2005". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - August 18, 2005". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - March 09, 2007". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - June 01, 2007". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ "SmackDown! results - August 17, 2007". Online World of Wrestling. Retrieved 2007-08-17.