WWE SmackDown
Friday Night SmackDown! is a professional wrestling show that airs in the United States on UPN, in Canada on The Score Network and in the United Kingdom on Sky Sports. It is produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The show is generally seen by wrestling fans as WWE's "B show" to its older counterpart, the live Monday night show RAW.
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 the sister 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 in April 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. In August 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 pulled Thunder forward 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 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 (which was also used by RAW several years earlier).
The September 11, 2001 event was cancelled due to the terrorist attacks. On September 13, 2001, SmackDown! was broadcast live 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. The remained that way, with an American-Flag on the mini-tron, for two weeks.
Brand extension
In early to mid-2002, the 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 two biggest competitors, WCW and 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 champions as originally, the WWE 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 the 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 [2].
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. [3] 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, Rumors abound that the show will not be renewed when its contract with UPN expires unless the WWE can find a new network to broadcast SmackDown! , which seems unlikely. However, SmackDown! will continue to air on UPN at least until the contract to air that show expires in 2006. It is 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 caught unaware by the move. [4] [5]
Friday Night SmackDown!
SmackDown! was renamed Friday Night SmackDown! as a result of the show moving to Friday nights. 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 programme still airs on Thursdays in Canada on The Score. In the United Kingdom, Sky Sports airs 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 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 the WWE website. Other countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom, received the full two-hour show.
"Friday Night SmackDown!" stars will have exposure at WWE Homecoming, RAW's return to USA Network on October 3.
Current champions
| Championship: | Current Champion(s) |
| World Heavyweight Champion 1 | Batista |
| WWE Tag-Team Champions 2 | Road Warrior Animal and Heidenreich |
| WWE Cruiserweight Champion 3 | Nunzio |
| WWE United States Champion 4 | Chris Benoit |
Footnotes:
1: The World Heavyweight Title was created by Eric Bischoff when Brock Lesnar refused to defend the title on RAW, it is currently on the SmackDown! brand after current champion, Batista, was drafted from Raw on June 30, 2005.
2: This is a completely new tag-team championship. The original WWE Tag Team championship became RAW exclusive and was renamed the World Tag Team Championship.
3:This championship originally was the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. The WWE adopted it and dropped their own Light Heavyweight Championship in favor of it. It also became SmackDown! exclusive.
4: 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.
General managers and "owners"
- Theodore Long (July 29, 2004 - Present)
- Kurt Angle (March 25, 2004 - July 29, 2004)
- Paul Heyman (October 23, 2003 - March 22 2004)
- Stephanie McMahon (Stephanie McMahon-Levesque) (July 18, 2002 - October 19, 2003)
- Vince McMahon (March 18, 2002 - July 18, 2002)