Smackdown sucks? Ok, so, fix it.

[Radical]

This thread is in response to the general feeling I get amongst most 'fans' that SmackDown sucks and isn't worth watching. The usual reasons being:

- The matches suck and are repeats
- No storylines progress
- Too many tag team matches
- Nothing really interesting happens


Ok, so based off of those issues, how would you propose SmackDown be fixed?

I ask, for this thread, to only talk about how the show matches and segments could be improved, not on how the look of SmackDown could be improved. By that I mean, don't worry about saying the stage should be changed, the ring ropes, the intro, the pyro, etc. Most of us agree with that anyway but also that doesn't get at the core of what would make SmackDown better.


So please, give me your thoughts and opinions on how you would improve SmackDown. Use these questions as talking points:

How would you change it so the matches aren't a bunch of repeats without making matches that make less sense because of their randomness?

How would you change it so there isn't so many "Tag Team Main Events, Playa!" Is there really a way to change to or are we just being unrealistic in complaining about tag team main events?

How would you change it so that storylines progressed and interesting "must watch" things happen on the show?

 

[beckyh]

Here are a few ideas:

* Get 2-3 dedicated writers for the show. All they do is storylines for that show and not RAW.

* Nothing wrong, imo, with Tag Team Main events. They need to build that division and it seems to have very little tv time on RAW. It will also give the Superstars experience.

* Create a Singles Championship title for the show that is never united with RAW. Put it on PPVs heavily for a year or two.

*Do a Total Divas connection there. It would possibly pull some viewers there to see an 'extra' clip or promo that figures directly from the tv show. I think that show is doing better ratings than SD anyways. Have at least one match crossover between them.


*It needs a strong polarizing GM. Cannot be stressed enough.


* Get a monthly or semi-monthly theme match going. Mini-PPV style. Keep it on SD and not RAW.


*Do a SD Rewind segment (albeit a short one) on RAW.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Here are a few ideas:

* Get 2-3 dedicated writers for the show. All they do is storylines for that show and not RAW.

* Nothing wrong, imo, with Tag Team Main events. They need to build that division and it seems to have very little tv time on RAW. It will also give the Superstars experience.

* Create a Singles Championship title for the show that is never united with RAW. Put it on PPVs heavily for a year or two.

*Do a Total Divas connection there. It would possibly pull some viewers there to see an 'extra' clip or promo that figures directly from the tv show. I think that show is doing better ratings than SD anyways. Have at least one match crossover between them.


*It needs a strong polarizing GM. Cannot be stressed enough.


* Get a monthly or semi-monthly theme match going. Mini-PPV style. Keep it on SD and not RAW.


*Do a SD Rewind segment (albeit a short one) on RAW.

So basically what you're saying is we need to once again explore the idea of Brand Extension/Separation?

I actually wholeheartedly agree, and have been thinking this for a long time. You know it's funny, there was a period of time around 2004 - 2008 where I didn't even watch RAW at all. SD! was king in my lounge, and every week I tuned in to watch some incredible feuds such as Edge v Jericho, Cena v Angle, Lesnar v Guerrero, and Batista v The Undertaker.

Reversing the Brand Extension was a mistake, and now the whole product suffers.

Alas, SmackDown... has become WCW Thunder

 

[Mustang Sally]

The only improvement I'd make is to write the show in a way that keeps it quickly paced and flowing, as is usually the case, but not always.

When considering the idea of turning Smackdown into Raw II, always try to remember what WWE secondary shows were like in the 80's and 90's: they amounted to recap shows with replays from the main production, with interviews and matches from house shows plugged in. Named "WWF Superstars" and "All-star Wrestling," the productions were slow and often disjointed; only true fans watched them, especially since the contests consisted mostly of a superstar against a jobber.....and when I say jobber, I'm not talking about how we regard that term today...... these jobbers were guys who never won a friggin' match; they were being fed to the superstar and often were not allowed to get in a lick of offense.

Compare that to today's Smackdown, in which there are plenty of matches between capable contenders who usually wage war on even terms....and we honestly don't know who's going to win. True, existing storylines usually aren't jostled, but at least we get to see quality matches.

Yes, if you want Smackdown to be staged like Raw, you're bound to be disappointed because it isn't gonna happen. For one thing, the Creative people have enough storylines to come up as it is. Personally, though, I'll take Smackdown as it is, as along as it stays a crisply produced, entertaining show. That's still a hell of a lot better than "All-star Wrestling," heaven help us.

 

[Dagger Dias]

There's two midcard championships. So why not make Smackdown have more focus on the Intercontinental Championship while Raw has more focus on the US Championship? The Tag Team division and diva division can also see more time on Smackdown if they did not make it onto Raw that week. One big change I would make is less Raw recaps. One on the entire show is enough. This frees up time for more matches and segments. If someone has already worked a match on Raw that week, then unless they are working a title feud they do not need another match on Smackdown. Allow more chances for everyone to be onscreen and Smackdown will seem less repetitive. Having a different announcing team would help some too. Cole and JBL do not have to be on both Raw and Smackdown, for instance. Lastly, change the ring ropes back to red on Raw and blue on Smackdown. Little changes here and there could add up and make Smackdown stand out more again.

 

[Aeon Mathix]

Smackdown should be the wrestling show like it was back in the day when guys like Eddie, Benoit, Lesnar, Edge, Mysterio, Angle otherwise known back then as the Smackdown Six were putting on great matches every time they went out there. It was a nice breather from the bullshit Raw is Triple H we had to endure back then. Yes we had to sit through it but do you know what made it worth it? Knowing that on thursday we were going to get some high quality matches and actually be entertained.

That's not to say Smackdown was perfect back then by any means as it had ridiculous stuff like the Mcmahons taking over at times and the Zack Gowen era. But it was the show you could count on for some good old fashioned quality wrestling. That's what smackdown needs to be today. Like a more polished NXT show. Less of the bullshit and just throw some talented guys out there and let them and the audience have fun. Cut the RAW recaps and all of that junk. Advance some midcard stories or any other stories that didn't get anything but a 1 minute segment or something from that monday night. Leave Raw for the "entertainment" parts like the Bellas and guest hosts and have Smackdown be THE show to watch for action.

 

[GeminiGarlord]

Eh I don't know. Honestly right now I'm actually enjoying smackdown since it's basically become The Rollins Show, when they let Seth Rollins actually wrestle instead of doing chicken heel stuff.

How to make it better, eh, more of that. More good wrestling, more skits that sorta-of-continue-storylines-but-not-really, maybe have a midcarder storyline exclusive to smackdown (maybe involving, who knows, the u.s. championship).

 

[Radical]

A lot of good ideas from the people who posted in this thread.


I think people, in general, are a bit harder on SmackDown than it deserves. Sometimes, yes, it's garbage and nothing interesting happens. Okay, maybe a lot of the time, and that's probably why even when there is a good SmackDown people are hesitant to say it is because they are so used to just saying it sucks. Even though people say they want quality matches, storyline progression, less tag team matches and have something really worthwhile happen on the show I'd bet if most of us were charged with actually keeping up with that if we were in charge of the show we would be having the same problems. So I do think it is easier said than done to make SmackDown 'better', but there are a few key things I think they can do, and do more consistently.

Now, I've seen SmackDown this Friday due to the international airing time and I won't spoil any finishes (even though you can see them all if you are on this site and read the spoilers) but I will say I believe tonight's SD is an example of a good episode. We'll have to wait to see the ratings, I hope to see they are good to confirm my feelings but I'll break down what happened and say why I think it was good, or where it could be improved and what SmackDown should continue to do.

SmackDown started with a 8-man tag match. The Usos, Mark Henry and Big Show vs Erick Rowan, Luke Harper, Star and Goldust. Even though I don't like tag matches that get above 6-men, this one was actually good. The pace was kept up, each Superstar got in some offense and the finish was solid. Only thing that I could think of that would make for a 'must-see' OMG moment would be a Superplex with like Big Show, Mark Henry, Harper and Rowan somehow form the top turnbuckle that then destroyed the ring! Of course, that would mean the match would have had to end the show, so considering the placement on the card, the match was good.

Then was Bo Dallas vs Justin Gabriel. Jack Swagger was at ringside with Zeb to build more on the Dallas/Swagger feud. The match was decent. Gabriel has a cool new look now with a good entrance theme and got in some decent offense so it wasn't really a squash match. But a good match for what it was supposed to be: building up Bo Dallas while building more tension between Swagger and Dallas in this mid-card feud. Good use of SmackDown to focus on Superstars who don't often get much time on Raw.

Paige vs Summer Rae was next. Layla at ringside and AJ at commentary. Honestly, didn't watch it until the very end. Each female is a solid wrestler but I just wasn't interested in this at the time, but that's more my opinion than anything 'wrong' with the segment. So it did what it was supposed to do.

Next was Mark Henry vs Rusev in the International Arm Wrestling competition. Say what you want about arm wrestling competitions in a scripted show but hey, it was something we don't see all the time. Really, how many arm wrestling competitions have there been in WWE in the last 10 years? Not really many. So this was a good use of SmackDown time to build the feud between Henry and Rusev.

Dolph Ziggler & R-Truth vs Miz & Sandow. Fun and good match. This is and example of furthering storylines on a SmackDown and something interesting happening because Ziggler called out R-Truth, or should I say, R-Ziggler to be his stunt double in response to the Miz and "Miz"dow thing going on and it was funny and good. Not a super long match, but it didn't need to be to get the point across. It's storyline progression for IC title. Only thing that kind of sucks about it is that it wasn't he Main Event so it means those guys aren't really main event material and so really maybe this should be the US title feud, but none the less, who are we kidding? The IC title IS mid-card and so even on SmackDown it will usually be there. It was also only one spot out of the main event, so that's probably a good sign anyway.

Main Event of the night was Jericho & Reigns vs Orton & Rollins. Another good match. Building tension and story between these Superstars, in particular, Jericho/Orton and Reigns/Rollins. Each Superstar looked good and since these are related to matches on the NoC PPV it made sense to use SmackDown to further this more. The one thing I don't want to see is this as an exact rematch on Raw, which sadly, may indeed happen. However, it is not a problem of SmackDown, more a problem of Raw.


So, there you go. SmackDown can be done well. It only sucks every time if you want it to suck every time. Some nights it actually is well done. Like I said, problem is consistency. If tonight's SD was good but next week we get some garbage like 2 separate Divas matches, a 10-man tag match with every tag team on the roster for no good reason, Bo Dallas vs El Torito and Randy Orton vs Sheamus for the 1000th time, then I could see people getting upset with the show for not being 'worth it.'

 

[Good Golly It's Ollie]

There's two midcard championships. So why not make Smackdown have more focus on the Intercontinental Championship while Raw has more focus on the US Championship? The Tag Team division and diva division can also see more time on Smackdown if they did not make it onto Raw that week. One big change I would make is less Raw recaps. One on the entire show is enough. This frees up time for more matches and segments. If someone has already worked a match on Raw that week, then unless they are working a title feud they do not need another match on Smackdown. Allow more chances for everyone to be onscreen and Smackdown will seem less repetitive. Having a different announcing team would help some too. Cole and JBL do not have to be on both Raw and Smackdown, for instance. Lastly, change the ring ropes back to red on Raw and blue on Smackdown. Little changes here and there could add up and make Smackdown stand out more again.

This is actually quite good, I think. At first I was gonna say to you Dags, that it would be straight up admitting that it's the B show. But then I though, they already almost admit outright that SD is the B show. Fewer commentators, Raw recaps etc. as you said. Why not make it revolve entirely around the midcard? If they go out of their way to make it feel more like a separate thing than a follow-up thing, it might regain some of its old ground. I personally am hoping for unification between US & IC at some point though, but this doesn't mean the idea won't work. You could also include more of the tag undercard, while the tag champs tend to defend on Raw or something.

I am not sure that SD will even be around that much longer though.

And yeah, there are too many "so if you didn't watch, which you totally should have done, here's what happened on Raw!!!"

 

[MCMG]

I don't have any magical solutions but I'm not a massive fan of these random tag-team matches. Big Show, Henry and The Uso's vs The Rhodes and The Wyatt Family with a traditional ending. Boring. Why not have Bray summon Harper and Rowan and they just walk away meaning Cody and Goldust losing is effectively in a handicap situation. Jericho/Reigns v Rollins/Orton, meh. Far too easy for my liking and didn't hype either match at NoC all that well.

If we are looking long-term then I'd like at least one long match per Smackdown. They know they lose a high percentage of people who watch Raw so why not just have a core of reliable guys who can go out for 15/20 minutes and put on a damn good wrestling match. Pick two of guys like Ziggler, Cesaro, Sheamus, Swagger, Axel, Kofi, Barrett and eventually Neville, Zayn and Kidd. No special guest announcers or screwy finishes; just one good wrestling match.

After all, I am a wrestling fan and if the match is given time, both guys end up looking strong. Then, people may actually watch Smackdown even if it's just for the match of the week. I'd do similar on Raw but that should be used to build for PPV's and I'm fine with that. I don't think some people at WWE realise that they have a very good group of in-ring competitors. They can easily give us an entertaining match but they often don't get the chance to develop a match.

 

[WBL]

I would solve several problems at once with one tweak. The problem of Smackdown being a nobody-cares show, the problem of nobody caring about the Intercontinental title, the problem of it being a B-show... make the Intercontinental Title the main focus of the show. Just like the WHC used to be the focus of the show, back during the brand split. Now, I'm not saying a brand split would work again.. it's the same roster. But make the IC title the main focus of what is admittedly a B-show. Oh, the WWE title exists, but the champion and those involved in his storyline aren't there every single week. That helps elevate Raw, and gives SmackDown more time to focus on the mid-upper card.

Also, bring back the fist.