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WWE SmackDown

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For the video game series based on the show, see WWE SmackDown! (video game).
WWE SmackDown
File:Fridaynightsmackdown.jpg
WWE Friday Night SmackDown! logo
Created byVince McMahon
StarringSmackDown! Brand
Country of originUnited States
No. of episodes343 (As of March 24, 2006)
Production
Running time1 hour, 42 minutes per episode
Original release
NetworkUPN
ReleaseApril 29, 1999 –
Present

WWE Friday Night SmackDown! is a professional wrestling program that airs in the United States on UPN, in Canada on The Score Network, in India on Ten Sports, in the UK, Republic of Ireland and mainland Europe on Sky Sports, in Portugal on SIC Radical, in Australia on FOX8 and in Finland on SubTV. It is produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and is the main broadcast of the "SmackDown!" Brand. The show was previously seen by wrestling fans as WWE's "B show" to its older counterpart, the live Monday night show RAW. Since the brand extention, the show has raised in both ratings and recognition and is treated on screen as the on-par competition to Monday Night Raw. Between 2003-2004 the show suffered again with some believing there was increased attention put on Raw, but since the 2005 draft, and the move from Thursday nights to Friday nights, SmackDown! has risen to prominance once again.

The SmackDown! stars typically perform four shows in a week. WWE usually tapes its Tuesday evening show for UPN to air on Friday evening of the same week. However, the show is occasionally broadcast live. From its launch in 1999, SmackDown! was shown on Thursday nights, but as of September 9, 2005, the show moved to Friday nights [1]. To reflect this change, the show is now referred to as Friday Night SmackDown!

SmackDown! is currently expected to move to the new CW Network when UPN and The WB Television Network merge in September 2006 to become CW. Whether it retains its Friday time slot or moves again is currently subject to debate. [2]

SmackDown! is the parent show to WWE Velocity. The current theme song of SmackDown! is "Rise Up" by Drowning Pool.

Show history

Pre-brand extension

WWF SmackDown! (as it was originally known) was set up to compete against WCW's Thursday night show, Thunder. In the spirit of the WWF's Attitude Era, the show was originally planned to be two hours of WWF Divas in primetime TV. However, this did not work out, and instead SmackDown! became a complementary show to RAW.

SmackDown! first appeared on April 29, 1999 using the RAW is WAR set as a single television special. However as the year continued, the WWF found itself experiencing a meteoric rise as new wrestling fans tuned in week after week to catch RAW is WAR. On August 26, 1999, SmackDown! officially debuted on UPN. Like WCW Thunder, SmackDown! was recorded on Tuesdays and then broadcast on Thursdays. The new WWF show was so popular that WCW moved Thunder on 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 original SmackDown! theme was not performed by a band like the RAW is WAR theme; instead, the WWF created a fast-paced theme that was a mixture of techno and rock. The first SmackDown! set was also 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 Titantron 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 "Layeth the smack down." In August 2001, as part of celebrating SmackDown!'s 2nd anniversary, the show received its current logo and set, and a new theme song performed by Marilyn Manson. 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 cancelled due to the terrorist attacks. On September 13, 2001, SmackDown! was broadcast live (from Houston with Jim Ross and Paul Heyman filling in as hosts Michael Cole and Tazz were absent) 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 through the 1990s. They would remain that way, with an American Flag on the mini-tron, for two weeks.

Brand extension

WWE underwent something they called the "Brand Extension." This meant that the two WWE TV shows (RAW and SmackDown!) would become competition for each other. This came about after WWE purchased their biggest competitor, WCW, and they decided to bring in talent from the out-of-business ECW. The brand extension was publically 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 WWE 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 originally, those titles were defended on both shows. However, later in 2002, Brock Lesnar, then the WWE Champion, refused to defend the title on RAW, causing the title to become SmackDown!-exclusive. Following that, both shows then got their own exclusive championships.

In January 2005, the Oakland Tribune reported that Leslie Moonves, co-President and co-Chief Operating Officer of UPN's parent company, Viacom, announced that SmackDown! will not be renewed on UPN after Viacom's contract with WWE expires in 2006. This article was later revealed to be in error; Moonves was in fact saying that SmackDown! may not be renewed, as opposed to will not be renewed [3].

The SmackDown! brand has a sister show, Velocity, that consists 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. [4] 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. Sources within WWE were reportedly unaware of the move.[5][6] However ironically, it worked out for the better for both parties involved, as the show is now getting better ratings than it had on Thursdays, while UPN is now getting much better ratings on Friday's 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. On January 2006, prior to the announcement of the CW Network, it was announced that UPN had quietly renewed SmackDown! for an extra two more seasons. [7]

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! didn't 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.

Logos

Friday Night SmackDown!

SmackDown! was renamed Friday Night SmackDown! as a result of the show moving to Friday nights in the United States. WWE promoted this move with the tagline "TV that's changing Friday nights." Friday Night SmackDown! made its series/season premiere on September 9, 2005. The program still airs on Thursdays in Canada on The Score. In the United Kingdom and Australia, their respective stations Sky Sports and FOX8 air SmackDown! on Fridays before the United States due to the time difference, and on Saturdays in Hawaii due to other programs. This is the first time a major weekly WWE show airs internationally before it hits screens in the US.

The events of Hurricane Katrina affected the first edition of Friday Night SmackDown! in the US. Due to a special fundrasing concert to help those affected airing on UPN along with other major US networks at the same time the first edition would have been broadcast, only the second hour of the show was shown on UPN. The first hour was instead streamed from WWE's website. Other countries, including Canada, United Kingdom and Australia received the full two-hour show. WWOR-TV (UPN 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.

Friday Night SmackDown! stars had some exposure at WWE Homecoming, RAW's return to USA Network on October 3, 2005.

On October 15, 2005, it was announced that a new Juniors Division was formed and to be exclusive to Friday Night SmackDown! The Juniors division consisted of wrestlers that are at or below 5 feet (152 cm) tall. [8] The Juniors division had been mainly used for comedy matches. However, no Juniors matches had been seen since November 11, 2005, leading some to believe the WWE abandoned the division. Though the Juniors were seen periodically since then, the division was released from World Wrestling Entertainment on March 9, 2006.

SmackDown! earned a major victory at Survivor Series 2005 after their 5 man tag team consisting of Rey Mysterio, Bobby Lashley, Batista, Randy Orton, and JBL defeated Team RAW consisting of Kane, Big Show, Shawn Michaels, Carlito, and Chris Masters. Also SmackDown! General Manager Theodore Long defeated RAW General Manager Eric Bischoff with the help of The Boogeyman.

At the SmackDown! taping on January 10, 2006, Batista had to forfeit the World Heavyweight Title because of a tricep injury. Theodore Long made a Battle Royal for the vacant Title. The winner was former RAW and now current SmackDown! superstar Kurt Angle. In a break from their traditional role of acting as if SmackDown! isn't pre-recorded, WWE.com had a photograph of Angle holding his new title on the main page.

Second Rate Show?

Many people considered Friday Night SmackDown! to be the second-rate show to Monday Night RAW, with even the announcer team having been called the B-Team. However, Smackdown has come up to the occassion and has beaten RAW's superstars before, including the Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, and Taboo Tuesday. Additionally, since the WCW merger, the move to Friday, and the Raw vs. Smackdown angle (including the lottery, video games, etc), Smackdown has appeared to attain level status to fans and TV execs alike.

Current champions

Please do not post title changes if the match has not yet aired on TV in the US.


Footnotes:

The World Heavyweight Championship was awarded to Triple H by Eric Bischoff when Brock Lesnar refused to defend the WWE Undisputed title on RAW; it is currently on the SmackDown! brand after Batista was drafted from the RAW brand while carrying the belt.

The original WCW United States Championship was once unified with the WWE Intercontinental Championship. The title was revived by Stephanie McMahon, along with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin reintroducing the Intercontinental Championship for RAW. This title shares lineage with World Championship Wrestling.

The WWE Championship is a completely new tag team championship. The original WWE Tag Team championship became RAW exclusive and was renamed the World Tag Team Championship.

The WWE Cruiserweight Championship originally was the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. WWE adopted it and dropped their own Light Heavyweight Championship in favor of it. It also became SmackDown! exclusive.

Recurring segments

In addition to wrestling matches and backstage vignettes, SmackDown! has also had several recurring segments as part of its program. The first of these was a new incarnation Rowdy Roddy Piper's famous Piper's Pit interview series. After Piper's exit from WWE, René Duprée hosted a similar segment called Café de René.

2004 saw the introduction of two segments to the show. "The Kurt Angle Invitational" featured Kurt Angle wrestling professional wrestlers who were allegedly from the town the show was taped in. The Kurt Angle Invitational became an exclusive to RAW when Angle was drafted to that show from SmackDown! $1,000,000 Tough Enough was the latest edition of the reality show hosted by former WWE performer Al Snow.

2005 saw the advent of Carlito's Cabana an interview segment that was Carlito's answer to RAW's Chris Jericho's Highlight Reel. After Carlito was drafted to RAW, he took his interview segment with him. The Peep Show hosted by one of SmackDown! 2005 draft lottery picks, Christian, replaced the segment for a few months until Christian left the company for TNA Wrestling.

General managers and "owners"

Commentators

File:Cole and Tazz.jpg
Michael Cole and Tazz


WWE SmackDown! Commentators Year-by-Year

Year Network (United States) Play-by-Play Color Commentator Alternate PbP
1999 UPN Michael Cole Jerry Lawler Jim Ross
2000 UPN Michael Cole Jerry Lawler Jim Ross
2001 UPN Michael Cole Jerry Lawler (Jan-Feb, Nov-Dec);
Tazz (Feb-Nov) 		Jim Ross
2002 UPN Michael Cole Jerry Lawler (Jan-Mar);
Tazz (Mar-Dec) 		Jim Ross
2003 UPN Michael Cole Tazz
2004 UPN Michael Cole Tazz
2005 UPN Michael Cole Tazz
2006 UPN/CW Michael Cole* Tazz*

* - Current

See also

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