What has Smackdown come to?

[Scott Barton]

Just watched the last edition of Smackdown, and I don't think I have heard a show where the fans have been more silent. Even in the main event, which is supposed to be 6 of the biggest stars in the company, was silent. Now I know it often varies between city and city but what is Smackdown truly offering? Do you even watch it anymore?

 

[BigDaveCUFC]

Smackdown died about 2005 I think.

I think personally a lot of it was down to the fact it was the better of the 2 shows in the first few years of the brand split........ALOT better. Think people up top decided to weaken the smackdown brand to improve the Raw brand and has done so ever since.

the sad part is Smackdown should be the great show to build up new guys, let them on occasions work with experienced pro's, build the IC title as its main belt and develop promo's and build people up for the main roster, it is something WWE has failed at doing properly for years.

and with the formation of NXT the question now is what place does Smackdown have anymore?? Its not the main show, its not the development show.........it is just frankly there.....filling some gaps.

but the biggest Killer I think for SD is people do not have time for numerous programmes thesedays, not many watch 3 hours of raw, 2 hours of Smackdown, 1 hour NXT, all PPV's, TNA, ROH etc, etc, etc.....you pick a show and stick with it through good or bad and don't have a mass of interest in others unless that said show gets you really excited to. I think most WWE fans stick with RAw and will only watch SD if Raw delivers a solid rn of excellent shows to hype people up.............going off reviews they have not delivered that for a long time.

 

[NiallQuinnDiscoPants]

i like the style of smackdown being more wrestling based, and i would pick that style over raw which has 2 minute squash matches, 30 minute promos and the occasional long great match.

however, smackdown being taped is a huge issue. and also they hold off any big surprises they have for raw. a lot of the time, smackdown spends 10 minutes reshowing what happened on raw

 

[Captain Scumbag]

From a strictly creative point of view, the existence of Smackdown only makes sense if there's a brand split – i.e. if there are two separate shows, each with its own roster, commentators, authority figures, titles, etc. Without that split, it just becomes a Raw re-cap show padded out with a few matches that don't mean anything.

Presumably they persevere with it because they are obligated (through TV deals) and/or because there's still some profit in the live events. No one with an ounce of sense would watch it, though.

 

[Libertine]

Dreadful.

I put it on on a Friday night just to chill and have it on in the background, but Christ almighty it's lame. Raw being 3 hours hasn't helped it but it's been irrelevant for a long while.

 

[Saddlerrad]

A while being about a decade. It hasn't been good since the days of Benoit, Undertaker etc. Not that I've watched it since about 2006.

 

[Scott Barton]

A while being about a decade. It hasn't been good since the days of Benoit, Undertaker etc. Not that I've watched it since about 2006.

I remember in 2002/2003 when Raw was horrible and featuring matches like Goldberg/Mark Henry in the main event, Smackdown had some solid matches with the combinations of Angle, Benoit, Lesnar and then you also had Eddie Guerrero, Team Angle. I may have to relive some classic smackdown, one of my favourite segments though:

 

[Scott Barton]

and not to mention:

 

[Oaf]

The thing that kills modern Smackdown for me is that they completely manipulate the sound of the crowd, it's not real at all. They use the same sound clips all of the time as well, I'm sure. But the awful canned crowd vs a live one on Raw makes a heck of a lot of difference.

They use to it try to manipulate people into cheering/booing who they want to get booed a lot sa well. It was always pretty weird, for example, leading into WM where Reigns would be booed out of the building on Raw, then seemingly beloved on Smackdown.

 

[Scott Barton]

The thing that kills modern Smackdown for me is that they completely manipulate the sound of the crowd, it's not real at all. They use the same sound clips all of the time as well, I'm sure. But the awful canned crowd vs a live one on Raw makes a heck of a lot of difference.

They use to it try to manipulate people into cheering/booing who they want to get booed a lot sa well. It was always pretty weird, for example, leading into WM where Reigns would be booed out of the building on Raw, then seemingly beloved on Smackdown.

They always dub sound when raw is in England too