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SATE: Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks MMAR: #7: UFC 41: Onslaught RRC: 04/19/04 AMV: #152: Backlash 2004 - Counterpoint RCC Spotlight: Group Column: Changing Days
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The John Report: What’s Wrong With Smackdown?
by: John C. on: 4/23/2004 2:11 pm est  Remember when Smackdown was the best weekly show in WWE? It wasn’t that long ago. It’s been two years since the roster split, or brand extension, as WWE likes to call it. If you were to score the two shows on points since the start of the split up until now I’d say Smackdown is ahead. The way Smackdown had better matches, especially at the top of the card, propelled it ahead of Raw as the better WWE show. I think that momentum started to swing the other way around September 2003 when Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle participated in a 60-minute Ironman match on Smackdown in a match that is arguably the greatest in WWE TV history. Since then, Raw has not only pulled ahead of Smackdown, but has lapped Smackdown a few times, especially on the road to WrestleMania and beyond. Some may think it’s close or they may think Smackdown was never better in the first place. Me? I think Smackdown has been better, but Raw is much better now. I think there are many reasons why the fall of Smackdown has happened. In today’s column I’m going to go over the reasons I feel are why Smackdown is trailing right now and I will also offer solutions that I feel are practical ones. It’s more than simply saying, “push this guy” or “fire that guy” because that’s different. It’s easy to do that. What you’ll get here are realistic solutions to the problem that currently exists. Before that, though, we must figure out what happened to put Smackdown in the position it’s in right now. “Fifth Year Seniors vs. Redshirt Freshmen” That’s what Jim Ross said on WWE’s internet show “Byte This” this past Thursday. It was in response to a reader’s question on whether or not Smackdown was the “minor leagues” compared to Raw. The reference is to college athletics, and since it’s JR we’re talking about here, it’s college football. A fifth year senior is somebody that “redshirts” his first year, meaning he didn’t play during the season, he just practiced with the team and learned on the sidelines. He’d get his chance when others graduated. Is JR right? I think so. If you look at the veterans on both shows, Raw has way more. When Shawn Michaels came back, he went to Raw. When Steve Austin came back, he went to Raw. When Mick Foley came back, he went to Raw. Despite Smackdown being “his show” The Rock spent more time on Raw since he’s become a non-regular. I understand that. Raw is the show that’s been around longer. It’s been on for eleven years while Smackdown will be celebrating five years in August. It’s live. That’s big for wrestlers. If you screw up on Smackdown they could go back and re-shoot it. On Raw, you only have one chance. If you screw up the finish to your match there’s no going back. It’s more challenging to the wrestlers because of that. It’s more “fun” to them. The only top level veteran associated with Smackdown at this point is The Undertaker, but he’s only been on Smackdown one time in the past five months. Other than him, you’d have to look at Bob Holly and Billy Gunn as the ones with the longest tenure with the company. Who wants to watch them? Nobody. Raw has way more star power. Getting back to JR, one of his points was that in the future, 6-8 months from now, Smackdown will be right there. Their young guys like Dupree, Haas and Jindrak will improve and the show will be better. That may be true. Of course, they could just as easily fail. I really hope, for their sake and for our sake as fans, that all the young guys improve because if they don’t then the balance of power is only going to get bigger. The Smackdown Six Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Edge and Chavo Guerrero. Collectively, they were known as the Smackdown Six. The first three men (Angle, Benoit and Guerrero) were referred to by me as the Holy Trinity because whatever they did in the ring was awesome (thus the holy part) and since there’s three of them, trinity fit in perfect. (It’s worth nothing that the original Holy Trinity was deemed to be Benoit, Guerrero and Dean Malenko, who is now working as a road agent for WWE). The others in the Smackdown Six were along for the ride, although they definitely had their moments. When the tag titles were re-introduced to Smackdown in the fall of ’02, these six men comprised the three teams that would make those titles seems so great because of their hard work. Angle & Benoit won the original tournament for the titles, beating Mysterio & Edge at No Mercy 2002 in a match that I called my 2002 Match of the Year. There were other memorable matches too, such as Edge/Eddie no-DQ match on Smackdown that saw the use of a ladder and the fatal four way elimination match to determine the number one contender for the Smackdown title in December. Those were three that stick out. There were many more. Simply put, you could stick those four into a match in any combination and you knew it would be great. Was it perfect? No, not really. Rey and Edge never got to promo, Angle and Benoit’s storyline was pretty non-existent and the Guerreros barely got a chance to do promos either. I didn’t care, though. The wrestling was great. Smackdown was the WRESTLING show. Raw was the other show. We were getting, on average, 30-40 minutes of great wrestling every Thursday night. Even The Undertaker, the guy who doesn’t like to sell a whole heck of a lot, put Brock Lesnar over clean in a Hell in a Cell match, propelling Lesnar to an amazing year. Over on Raw, HHH was fucking a corpse during all this. The shows couldn’t compare. If you want to know why Smackdown is in the tank now, look no further at where the Smackdown Six are now, as well as Lesnar and Taker. Kurt Angle – Currently a part-timer, Angle’s neck injury is so serious that WWE had to take him off the road for his own safety. He wanted to wrestle through it, but management stepped in. It’s expected that he’ll wrestle every few months once storylines are set up for it. In other words, he’s not what he was back in SD’s glory days. Chris Benoit – They built him up as a top contender on Smackdown. After getting a standing ovation after his 2003 Match of the Year with Angle at the Royal Rumble, he didn’t get much of a push until late in ’03. He came very close to beating Lesnar before moving to Raw and winning the title there. In other words, they built him up on one show and put him over on the other. Benoit’s a great champion, but he’s on the other show. Losing him for nothing in return was a huge blow to Smackdown. Eddie Guerrero – The current Smackdown champion is as good as ever. Things have worked out wonderfully for him. However, you have to wonder if he misses the days of 2002 when he was having terrific matches on a regular basis. All things considered, Guerrero is a huge success. Edge - Built him up as a singles star on Smackdown. If he didn’t hurt his neck in February 2003 maybe he would have main evented a PPV against Lesnar at some point in the year. Now, he’s a part of Raw. Why? Because rumor has it that Triple H wanted him there as a fresh babyface opponent to face in the future. Again, a huge blow to Smackdown. Rey Mysterio - He’s always going to be over with the fans because they appreciate his effort, talent and uniqueness that he brings to the show. The problem is that the writers don’t seem to care about him anymore. While reports have come out saying that he’s suffering dizzying spells, it was also rumored a few weeks back that a Smackdown writer told him that they had nothing for him. Nothing for a guy who is always over and always puts on a good show? What a fucking disgrace that is. This guy is too good to be sitting on the sideline. If he’s hurt, fine, that’s understandable, but if these writers are so inept that they can’t find a place for a talent like Mysterio then they should be fired. He’s being wasted. Big time. Chavo Guerrero - Like his uncle Eddie, he’s taken a step up. Went from a tag team wrestler to a cruiserweight star. Cut some good promos and has had some really strong matches, such as the one at No Way Out with Mysterio. He makes a good midcard heel. The addition of his father to his act has been wonderful too. Brock Lesnar - Was among the top two or three performers in the entire WWE in 2003. Made the leap to greatness when they needed him most. Now he’s trying out for the NFL with a future that is unknown. Another huge loss for Smackdown. The Undertaker - As of this writing, like I said earlier, he’s only appeared on television twice since Survivor Series. I think he still has value as a veteran presence on the show, but if he’s going to work it needs to be full time. Smackdown can’t afford to have part-timers right now. It’s not like Raw. This roster isn’t as deep. In looking at those eight people, only Eddie and Chavo have evolved into people that can still help Smackdown to this day. Maybe Taker can if he works full time, but I doubt that he will. He has a cushy job and he knows it. Why work more when you don’t have to? With Benoit and Edge on Raw now, the investments that were made for Smackdown’s future are gone. Since Angle isn’t a full timer his value has decreased a lot while the loss of Lesnar is a crippling blow. Then there’s Mysterio, who has to be frustrated by the idea that his company has nothing for him. The point is that when you spend nearly a whole year building up these people to carry Smackdown into the future and you can only say good things about two of the eight people, it shows that there is a lack of long term planning on this show. Bright Lights At The End of the Tunnel John Cena. Rene Dupree. Those are the names of two of the people that the WWE is going to be relying upon to make Smackdown into a great show again. There are others too. You never really know who it could be once they get the opportunity to shine. The thing is, it’d be a different group than the Smackdown Six or eight, if you wanted to include Lesnar and Undertaker. These guys aren’t established or polished as workers. Cena is clearly at the front of the pack of this next group of wrestlers that will likely step up to the forefront on Smackdown. He’s over with the crowd, even though many online fans are down on his babyface character because he has lost the edge that his heel character brings. I agree with that sentiment. However, I think long term he’s going to have a lot of value as a babyface because he’ll sell merchandise and possibly be the kind of draw that brings more viewers into Smackdown. Dupree is well liked by management. At the very young age of 20, he’s got an extremely bright future and it’s obvious that WWE wants to let him get his feet wet as soon as possible. With his “Café de Rene” interview segment showing up on Smackdown this past week, it’s obvious that they see big things in him. At Judgment Day in a few weeks it’s likely that Cena will take on Dupree. It will be the third match from the top in terms of importance, most likely (Eddie-Bradshaw and Taker-Booker will be top two). If you look back about 18 months ago, a match of similar importance was Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit at Unforgiven that year. Will this match be the caliber of that match? I’m 95% sure that it won’t. That’s not to say that this will suck. It just means that we, the wrestling fans, are going to have to be patient when it comes to seeing classic matches from the Smackdown brand anytime soon. Who else could emerge? Mark Jindrak. Charlie Haas. Doug Basham. Danny Basham. They’re all viable candidates. Maybe one of them, or somebody else, could catch fire as a character and in the ring. The sooner the better. Ideas To Help Smackdown The following ideas are ones that I think could improve the Smackdown program from top to bottom. Do six live editions of Smackdown per year. - Make sure each one of them has something special about them. Whether it’s a major title match with a gimmick like a ladder or Ironman, or a fatal four way to determine the #1 contender for the next PPV main event, just make sure it’s something worth watching. Since a lot of people are turned off by the fact that the show is taped, do it live for a few times in a year. I know it’s too expensive to do it live every week, but six times in a year wouldn’t be that bad. They could do a better job of drawing the fans that aren’t watching because it’s not a live show the same way that Raw is. Give the cruiserweights more high profile matches. - Main events. Fifteen minute matches. Anything. Just give them more. The crowds love it. Let them shine. Need an example? How’s this for one:  Rey Mysterio beat Matt Hardy on June 5, 2003 to win the cruiserweight title in the main event of that show. Since it’s was properly hyped and featured two talented performers, it drew a higher rating that Smackdown’s average. Why? Because it was different. It was also good! Since then we haven’t seen a cruiserweight match booked as the last thing shown on Smackdown. Considering the cruiserweight division is ONLY on Smackdown, you’d think that the WWE would do a better job in pushing it. Instead, half a dozen wrestlers are wasted because the boss is fascinated by men with large muscles. I don’t expect Vince McMahon to ever use cruiserweights perfectly, but is it too much to ask for a high profile cruiser match every two or three months? I don’t think so. Get Paul Heyman to book the damn shows! - When Smackdown was at its best in the fall of 2002, Heyman was the main booker of the show, under Vince McMahon of course. He convinced McMahon that having long wrestling matches on the show would give fans an alternative to Raw’s faster paced program. He was right. It also made Smackdown better because every week we were getting 2-3 great matches on Smackdown. It was also evident when it came time to do PPVs because the Smackdown matches usually destroyed the Raw matches. The shows were different. Raw rarely had long matches while Smackdown had plenty. It offered an alternative to fans. Now, they’re basically the same shows except Raw has the deeper talent roster filled with more veterans that the fans are used to watching. Let Paul Heyman be the GM of Smackdown. - Another Heyman point, but he’s worth it. As an on screen character he’s fantastic. Marks hate him and smarks love him because you can tell how much he loves it. He also brings credibility to the role because he actually ran a wrestling promotion called ECW back in the day. It wasn’t that long ago. I think it’s key to offer stability to the fans. Stephanie McMahon lasted just over the year as a boring babyface GM, then Heyman lasted less than six months even though he was about a million times better than Stephanie. He got replaced by Kurt Angle in the role after the draft lottery because they wanted to cut back on Angle’s in ring career. It’s a role that doesn’t fit Angle. It just doesn’t work. It’s kind of like Michael Jordan’s venture into an NBA front office. How about them Wizards, eh? For those that don’t know, they sucked and Jordan got fired after only a couple years on the job. The point is that being a great performer doesn’t mean you can be great in a role that you aren’t accustomed too. Let Heyman be the full-time GM again and don’t cut him out of the loop again. Use the “Divas” Better. - What’s the role of the Smackdown divas Torrie Wilson, Sable and Dawn Marie? I don’t know what it is. Sable was sort of with Mr. McMahon, but then he stopped being on the show. Torrie was with Billy Gunn for a while (maybe the worst pairing ever), but then he got hurt or maybe they realized he sucks. I forget now. Dawn Marie was Heyman’s assistant, although she barely did anything in that role. My idea is to USE THE WOMEN! Give them wrestlers to manage. Dawn Marie would be the perfect assistant to Rene Dupree. There are many reasons why, but the main one is that she could wear a FRENCH MAID OUTFIT~! as she accompanies him everywhere. It would just add to Dupree’s act. She’s also an awesome heel valet, as evidenced by her work with Lance Storm in ECW. Torrie Wilson probably wouldn’t work well as a heel, so find her a male wrestler that she could come to the ring with. If she’s there, the 14 year olds with the short attention spans will pay attention. If somebody like Charlie Haas is a face, put her with him. It’ll help him get along faster. She can’t promo, but like I said, she’s nice to look at. Same thing with Sable. She could work with a heel or face, I think. What would that do? It would allow for Smackdown to offer up some variety, including mixed tag matches. The women aren’t as good in the ring as the Raw girls, but for a few minutes they can be watchable. In tag situations it would work. It would be better than having Torrie try to act and watching her bomb week after week. The girls are on the roster and they’re always going to get a reaction out of the mostly male crowd, so why not use that to your advantage? Create a strong heel stable. - Much like Evolution on Raw, a stable on Smackdown would be very effective. If Paul Heyman isn’t the GM, let him create a stable. It could be ECW like, or it could have nothing to do with ECW. Stick the Dudley’s in there as a heel tag team. Like them or not, they have credibility. Plus, with Heyman as a mouthpiece, they’d seem decent again. Use Nunzio as the cruiserweight member of the group. Put the cruiser belt on him and make sure he doesn’t lose it for a while thanks to the help of his friends protecting him during the matches. As for a leader? I think Rene Dupree is a good choice. Since he’s young and considered a cheap heel, it won’t be a problem to have his group win him some matches by interfering on his behalf. Think about the future. What if they put him in a feud with Undertaker, Dupree’s boys run in on his behalf, take care of Taker and Dupree gets a pin on him. Even if it’s cheap, it would be big. Couple of months later they could do it in a cage match to eliminate interference. Put Dupree over clean there just like Mick Foley did for Randy Orton at Backlash. Right there you have a star. There are other options for a leader, but I think Dupree would be the best fit. Introduce Frustrated Raw Performers. - Since Raw has more people on its roster than Smackdown, it’s important to even them out. My suggestion is that on Raw they should have a few wrestlers (say Lance Storm, Val Venis and Hurricane, for example) complain to Eric Bischoff that they aren’t getting enough airtime. Bischoff says fine, throws them to the wolves and they get beat up mercifully by some of Raw’s heels because Bischoff wanted to send them a message. The next week they complain again. Bischoff jobs them out to Evolution in a six-man tag, and then fires them. That same week on Smackdown they can run down to the ring, beating the hell out of Smackdown people. They can say they want a contract with Smackdown. The GM says if they win a six-man tag later on then they get the job. They win that match. Suddenly, you’ve got three more performers who can be great if they have the backing of the company. Hurricane could dump the stupid mask, become Shane Helms again and light a fire under the cruiser division as a babyface performer getting a new start. Lance Storm could be paired up with Dawn Marie again as he finally gets a decent midcard heel push. He’s a solid worker who can help the younger competitors get better. Same thing with Morley. Heel or face, he could work. It’s just a matter of opportunity. Don’t let them waste away on Raw. Use them! There are others too, but these are the three that I feel would fit best on Smackdown. Also, it makes sense as a storyline. Lastly, this is my most important point. Develop a Trading Period. - Allow a two week trading period after WrestleMania and Summerslam. Those are seen as the biggest moments in the WWE year and are five months apart, which is enough time to shake things up a bit. As soon as those events are over, the trading period begins. It lasts for two episodes of Raw and two episodes of Smackdown. To go along with my earlier idea, that last episode of Smackdown would be one of the live shows in the year in order to garner more interest from the fans. The idea is to make it as real as possible. You could have both GMs appear on the show. Show a room backstage with a door marked “General Managers” on it. Show the GMs, for example, Bischoff and Heyman inside. They could have lawyers with them even. At least once in the night, assign a backstage reporter like Todd Grisham or Josh Matthews to go backstage and see if any major trades are brewing. They could say a big deal is in the works. At the end of the show, it could be announced. Or there could be nothing in that first week as both GMs point out that they think something big might happen the following week. Another idea to make it real is to have a “trade center” type desk in the company’s studios or just a room at the show. Gene Okerlund could be the host with Al Snow and Bill DeMott at his side. They’d be the ones because they’re the announcers of the respective brands’ “B” shows, Heat and Velocity. When a trade happens, they can talk about how it’s good or bad for their roster. It would only take a maximum of two minutes. The reason it would work is because it would give credibility to the show and make it seem more realistic because I would be similar to a NHL, MLB, NBA or NFL trade deadline type show. On that last episode of Smackdown, make sure a big trade is announced. For example, a swap of John Cena for Shawn Michaels. Maybe Bischoff could reason it as Shawn Michaels is older, so his future isn’t as bright as a young guy like Cena’s. Heyman could say that Smackdown needs a veteran presence on the show and Michaels fits that bill perfectly. Those kinds of things happen in sports all the time. Why not wrestling? It would be perfect. The Good and The Bad Ten different examples showing how Smackdown is seesawing between being a good show and a bad show these days. The Good: Bradshaw’s character. I like it. It works. As a main eventer, though, it's not right. The Bad: Bradshaw in the ring. He can’t wrestle well. That’s a problem. The Good: Chavo Guerrero as Cruiserweight champion. The Bad: A lack of babyface challengers for the Cruiserweight title. Why not use Shannon Moore and Paul London? The Good: Dawn Marie’s ass. The Bad: Dawn Marie’s ass isn’t on TV enough for my liking. The Good: There are no McMahon’s on Smackdown at the moment. The Bad: That probably won’t last too much longer. The Good: Rene Dupree’s French Hop dance. The Bad: Rikishi’s lumpy ass. The Good: Anything involving Eddie Guerrero. The Bad: Anything involving Torrie and acting. The Good: Memories of the Smackdown Six in tag team matches. The Bad: The current tag team division. The Good: Tazz’ announcing skills. The Bad: Jim Ross is on the other show. (In Mike Cole’s defense, he has improved, but he’s no JR.) The Good: Teddy Long as a manager. The Bad: He doesn’t have his own interview segment…yet. Let the man talk! The Good: Booker T. could really use a big win in his feud with Undertaker. The Bad: I don’t think it’s going to happen. Final Thoughts In my opinion I don’t think the Raw-Smackdown race is close right now. Raw is clearly ahead. Why is it ahead? Is it because Vince McMahon flat out likes Raw more than Smackdown? I think that could partially be true, but I don’t think that’s the reason. If it was then why was Raw so poor through most of 2002 and much of 2003? There are some who think that Smackdown was excellent in the past because they needed a contract extension to remain on UPN. They got that extension now, so maybe the focus is now on Raw to make it better and get an extension on Spike TV. Could be true, or it could be just the cynical fan shining through. I don’t think McMahon is trying to cause Smackdown to fail. I just think he sees it as his show of the future. The “minor leagues” as Booker T. calls it? Right now it seems that way. I think Jim Ross had a good point on Byte This. He said something to the extent of while Smackdown may seem inferior right now, it could be on even par with Raw in six months or so. He may be right. I could look back on this column in October and think, what the hell was I thinking? Right now what I think is that Smackdown will improve as their competitors get more comfortable in their role. I just don’t how fast they can improve. It needs to happen quickly or else they’re going to lose more fans then they will gain. If management remains stagnant and doesn’t try to implement some of the ideas that I’ve suggested, or good ideas of their own, then the future of Smackdown is going to be very, very dark. What’s Wrong With Smackdown? Inexperience. That’s the main thing. The talent needs to get better. As I said throughout the column, it has to be sooner rather than later. Oh, and I forgot one more Good and Bad thing. The Good: I got pictures of Dawn Marie’s ass. The Bad: Sadly, they’re ONLY pictures. Smell ya later, John C. wwfjohnc@hotmail.com Next Time: The debut of a joint column with Matt Seagull. Should be late next week. Coming Soon: The return of In Your Face (with Brett Berliner for the fourth version) and in the future, Steve Austin’s 25 Greatest WWF/E matches. Like I said last time, end of May seems likely. Also, another WWF PPV review from 1997. Thanks to DrLindermans for the banner above. I told him about the column and he whipped that banner up quickly once again. The Doc rules. |
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