Originally posted by LOPBeginning with its new timeslot premiere on September 9, WWE SmackDown! will be called "Friday Night SmackDown!"
During its upfront presentation this past May, UPN announced that it would be moving the weekly wrestling show to Friday nights. While wrestling analysts took the move as a sign that UPN was planning to drop SmackDown (the contract runs out next year), the network has held that the move should not be taken as an insult to WWE. The second-tier broadcast network simply wanted to open Thursday nights up for its original comedies, including the anticipated "Everybody Hates Chris."
== I'm...underwhelmed. I don't really like the Smackdown name (it reminds me of the Rock, who hasn't shown up on the show in ages)...so I was hoping for a newer name.
Comments?
(edited by SOK on 23.8.05 1442) I miss Alberta. Yes...seriously.
I think Smackdown should be moved to a cable station like USA and such.
Maybe if they had the pressure of putting on a live show they would shape up and be a RAW-quality show. Yes, believe it or not- Im saying Monday Night RAW is of higher standards than UPN's Friday Night SD!.
You're right though SOK- Smackdown! is very reminiscent of The Rock, and The Rock- being such a big star is not gonna appear on WWE's "B" Show anymore. . . But then, what to call it- WWE Nitro?!
I dunno, yo. Throwing out the logistics of doing a live show on Fridays, which are real tough, the taped Smackdown was significantly better than the live Raw for the first nearly two years of the roster split. From the beginning, Smackdown consistently blew Raw out of the water until the beginning of 2004, when Raw really became great and since then has usually been pretty good, while at the same time the wheels fell of Smackdown after Wrestlemania when their roster was depleted and for whatever reason they became overtly positioned as the B brand.
So I don't think being live would make much of a difference, other than it would increase the chances of folks like you and me watching it because we wouldn't know what was going to happen and always hope for the best. But the only thing you can change to make Smackdown better is the people in charge of Smackdown.
Also the weird thing is that it seems Smackdown is staying in its Friday slot over here in UK/Ireland so we get to see the show before the US. I believe Canada is staying Thursday.