What Year did you think Smackdown was Better then Raw?

[quink987]

Ok guys I know Smackdown isnt as Popular then Raw but during the whole Smackdown vs Raw Era of 2002-2006(cause after that it got shit) did you ever think Smackdown was better then Raw for me Ive always enjoyed Smackdown because during late 2002 and 2003 Smackdown was having better matches and some of the storylines seemed better because that whole HHH vs Goldberg got old really fast.

but the reason I think Smackdown was better during this period was Smackdown had stars like Brock Lesner,Kurt Angle, Undertaker, Big Show, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, The Cruiserweight Division and its own Tag Team Division which was started out with the teams like Angle/Benoit, Edge/Rey, Eddie/Chavo and so fourth, we saw Brock Superlex Big Show of the top rope and brake the ring, we saw the first Iron Man Match on Network TV and most importantly how hot did Stephine McMahon look during this time.

I'd Like to here your opinions even if you thought Smackdown was shit and Raw was better I want to here why?

 

[Matth3w]

Mid 2002 to Dec 2002 easily, for mentions stated above. ANYTHING was better than HLA/Katie Vick. Lesnar/Taker feud was intense, and the 'Smackdown 6' matches stole the show every week.

I'm also going to say 2004, with Eddies title reign and the rise of John Cena. Yes, JBLs reign wasn't all that interesting, but the fatal 4 way at Armageddon that year made up for it.

 

[Fear&Loathing]

2009 by far...

it had no stupid guest hosts it had the Hardys break up, CM Punk/Hardy feud, Taker/Punk feud Edge and Hardy had some brilliant matches Ladder match at extreme rules and the No DQ match at the Rumble and then right at the end of the year the start of the Straight Edge Society. Raw was unbearable to watch after the Orton and Mcmahon family feud ended.

 

[The Suplexer Perfecter]

2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. So I guess ever since the brand split.

Over on Raw you had the Triple H monopoly for 3 years, then Cena having the title 21 out of 24 months.

Smackdown had stuff like Hardy/Punk, Angle/Lesnar, Los Guerreros, and now has made Mark Henry credible.

Amazing what you can do with a wrestling program when Vince doesn't care that much about it.

 

[DanTheMan3:16]

2002-2011

in 2004 from feb to about aug. raw was better simply because of Chris Benoit but other than those few months smackdown was and still is the dominate brand

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

2006 is the only I felt that Smackdown wasn't as good as Raw. Raw that year wasn't all great to me but Smackdown was just a little worse due to Angle leaving and Batista getting injured.

I have a few points to make as to why I feel that Smackdown has been consistently better than Raw but first let me address HHH and Raw at that time.

I know a lot of HHH bashing in the past on these forums is because of what he did from 2003 to 2005. I know Raw sucked during that time and even I have referenced this but I believe HHH is a victim moreso than any of the guys he supposedly "buried". Look back at the Attitude Era for a minute. Who you say were the five central figures of that era? Rock, Austin, HHH, Undertaker, and Foley. Foley is debatable as some people would say Angle. During 2003, Rock left for Hollywood and Austin retired from active wrestling so HHH was the biggest name out there. Undertaker and Angle were never the top guy and you saw on Smackdown, that Angle was injured most of the time. I feel that it was basically HHH and no one else who could carry Raw at the time.

Now, let's get to my points.

1. Teddy Long has been the GM of Smackdown for seven years for the most part. Some say that he is stale and a change is needed but I disagree. Bischoff was a good GM as well as Stephaine McMahon but both seemed like they took a role in their respective brands more than they should have with the latter being more of a culprit. I remember Smackdown in 2003 being more about Stephanie and Vince than anyone else and that simply cannot happen. Teddy Long does what I feel a general manager is supposed to do. Make matches, don't make yourself to be bigger than your wrestlers, and be a peacemaker of sorts when things go awry. Long has done a great job in this role and I believe he will continue to do so.

2. I've never been much entertained through wrestling by talking but more by what you do in the ring even though I know mic skills are an important part as to getting over and being a great wrestler. I've noticed this over the years but more strongly these past couple of weeks. Whether the matches are 20 minutes or 5 minutes, you get your worth and you want to see more especially with shorter matches. I remember watching DiBiase vs. Kidd a few weeks back and saying to myself, "This match was good and I can't wait to see what they do if they give them an extra five minutes." I never get that from watching matches on Raw and that leads me to my third point.

3. If you like wrestlers talking on the mic and advancing storylines through that, then most would lean towards Raw. If you like advancing storylines through matches, than Smackdown would be your cup of tea. Both shows are two hours long and I see a big difference in the last thirty minutes of each show. With Raw, it seems like they are rushing trying to fit everything into the show and it hurts the main event because it will be rushed. You always get fifteen or twenty minutes on Smackdown for a main event and the pace is evened out throughout the show. Raw and Smackdown both have opening segments to start the show where a wrestler gets on the mic and talks about what happened last episode or what's going to happen in the future. Smackdown has that nice mix of wrestling and talking where you don't have a lot of time between matches but everyone gets to say what they need to say.

4. My final point has to do with the midcard on both shows. This is where I will give Raw credit as early on they had Christian, Chris Jericho, Randy Orton, Edge, and Shelton Benjamin having great matches. Then Christian, Edge, and Benjamin got injured and Orton moved up as he won the world title. With Hardy, Carlito, and Morrison, it looked like the IC Title was having a resurgence but then Santino won it. I hated him winning it and it took Mysterio and Jericho on Smackdown to "save" the title so to speak. I never thought much of the U.S. Title and they tried to make it just as important as its counterpart but I believe could never do it. Believe me they tried with best-of-5 or best-of-7 series both involving Booker T but it just couldn't happen although most of the Booker T/Benoit matches were very solid. Ever since then, you just haven't had a great or remotely good storyline for the title. Most of the time it has been defended in multi-man matches (I'm looking at you Kofi) or has rarely been defended at all.

All in all, I have enjoyed Smackdown more than I have enjoyed Raw for those reasons. Raw has had its shocking moments especially this year and Smackdown has trouble reaching that level mainly because the show is taped so people read the spoilers. I just love a good wrestling match that tells a story and Smackdown has always been able to do that for me more consistently than Raw has. To most, Raw is the A-show because it has better ratings and is more entertaining. Smackdown gives me what I look for in every aspect so it is my A-show.

 

[crippler]

Smackdown has been better than Raw since Cena went over to Raw and was almost always in the main event. Smackdown don't get the numbers that Raw does cuz its not live and people read the spoilers then they don't view it. Smackdown goes live you will see it pass Raw in numbers. WWE should start a live Smackdown Thursday nights

 

[amazing_blue]

I would have to say that during 2009 and early 2010, SmackDown was definitely better than Raw. The summer of '09 was amazing for SmackDown as you had Jeff Hardy, CM Punk and Edge in the main event, Chris Jericho, Rey Myesterio and John Morrison below that and plenty of other guys like Dolph Ziggler, Kane, Khali, Matt Hardy, Shelton Benjamin and Drew McIntyre doing their part to make things interesting. They also had a sweet divas division with the likes of Laycool, Mickie James and Maria.

This was the era that gave us The Straight Edge Society, which had a very intense feud with CM Punk. We also saw the return of The Undertaker and his last title reign, as well as the drafting of Batista which was sadly written off when he began to feud with John Cena over on Raw.

 

[bigbootydaddyV]

Smackdown has been better than Raw since Cena went over to Raw and was almost always in the main event. Smackdown don't get the numbers that Raw does cuz its not live and people read the spoilers then they don't view it. Smackdown goes live you will see it pass Raw in numbers. WWE should start a live Smackdown Thursday nights

I think it's funny that you said when Cena went to Raw because I'd argue that while Cena was on Smackdown and was on the cusp of his face turn, it is when Smackdown was at its prime. Especially with guys like Brock and Eddie and everyone on there, Smackdown was the show to watch. Cena's freestyles to the ring were hilarious, it wasn't until he got watered down into the super soldier that he started to get annoying, and even then, I'd argue that two of my favorite matches and to two of the hottest crowds of the last decade involved him (ONS 2 and MITB). I can't pinpoint the year because I don't remember what year it was, it's all a blur, but when Brock Lesnar was there basically is when Smackdown really was the better show. The Triple H dominated Raw was much worse than the Cena one IMO.

 

[King Patrick Star]

I mentioned my opinion on this before.

September 2, 2002 to June 6, 2005

I think from a little after Brock Lesnar won his first WWE Championship to a little after John Cena won his first WWE Championship, Smackdown was equal to Raw.

June 23, 2008 to April 13, 2009

Then again from the middle of Triple H’s 7th WWE Title reign (12th overall) towards the end of his 8th WWE Title reign (13th overall), which was also his last, Smackdown again was equal to Raw, in my opinion.

I think having the WWE Title on Smackdown sort of balanced the shows for me. Raw got the live time slot and Smackdown got the “Richest prize in our industry today”. Fair trade off for a couple of years here and there. With the World Title on Smackdown, it just screams the letter B, the number 2, and the words "World Championship Wrestling".

And I’m sticking to it. When the WWE Title was on Smackdown, I think it was equal to Raw. I think that those two time periods was the closest Smackdown ever was to Raw, but I don’t think Blue was ever better than Red. Realistically, it couldn’t have been better. Equal yes, better no.

 

[sabu4life]

02-06. when smackdown had the cruiserweight matches and they had good talented wrestlers until they got released

 

[The Brain]

Mid 2002 to Dec 2002 easily, for mentions stated above. ANYTHING was better than HLA/Katie Vick. Lesnar/Taker feud was intense, and the 'Smackdown 6' matches stole the show every week.

Agree with this so much.

I have been a die hard fan for about 25 years now and during that quarter century there have been two or three times where I felt I had lost touch with wrestling and maybe it was time to move on. The fall of 2002 was one of those times. We had just come off the greatest SummerSlam of all so I thought things were looking good. It went downhill quickly; at least on Raw.

I felt so disconnected with the product watching things like HLA and Katie Vick that I wondered if I had outgrown WWE. At this time it was the great action on Smackdown that kept me interested. Every week Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Edge, and Brock Lesnar were putting on great matches. Smackdown was by far the better product. We were getting ppv quality matches on an almost weekly basis every Thursday night.

I’m glad Smackdown was so good during this time as I stuck with WWE and only seven months after the greatest SummerSlam came the greatest WrestleMania. Nine years later and I’m still here. At this point I don’t know what it would take to get me to stop watching. WWE has been a part of my life for pretty much as long as I can remember. I’m sure I’m a lifer but HLA and Katie Vick almost chased me away.

 

[hasbeenkid]

I am one that reads the spoilers every week for Smackdown but turns into RAW every Monday for one reason..because its Monday Night Raw..its a show that has been on since the early 90's and by the time Smackdown came around RAW was already an established show. That being said I believe that Smackdown was better than Raw since the brand split because people are growing old with RAW and looking to watch a better show and in the end when the people arent ENTERTAINED than they bash the show. But people we need to remember this there is ONE distinct difference between the shows that result in the final product. That fact being RAW is LIVE and Smackdown is TAPED. The show is taped on tuesdays and edited and edited and once again edited and sometimes retaped until it airs to the public on Friday nights..RAW on the other hand adds that feel of realism to the show because its a LIVE show therefore though I believe Smackdown has been better than RAW for majority of the years, I am bias in that I will always tune in to watch the LIVE RAW than the taped Smackdown. And isnt it true that most of the time Smackdown is used to build up superstars until a RAW star is injured or is stale and they bring him over to RAW?

 

[mvh6]

Wouldn't the right question be when was RAW better than SmackDown? No just kiddin' but there seems to be a certain formula WWE uses every year.

RAW is the best show from Royal Rumble until WrestleMania because WWE finally writes good storylines and puts so much focus on RAW that they forget SD so much that it get's TNA level bad in booking.

Then RAW is the best show from June to August every year, because very year in the summer WWE starts the biggest storyline of the year, and then they destroy it before September.

After Wrestlemania until June and September until January SmackDown is the best show with simple storylines and good matches.

No actually After WrestleMania until June everything WWE does is so crappy! Rematches and boring PPVs with too predictable matches.

 

[TheNextBigThing94]

I think in terms of just the wrestling, Smackdown has largely been the better of the two.
Longer promos and deeper stories is what raw has always emphasised.

In my opinion, Smackdown in mid/late 2002 through to 2003 had both these aspects at a great level. A good way i like to think about it is what years did the smackdown main event of wrestlemania close the show? These were WM19 and WM24. Lesnar vs Angle at mania was the pinnacle of a real high time in smackdown, and it continued theoughout that year.

 

[Dagger Dias]

For most of the time it's been around, Smackdown has felt like the inferior brand. There were a few years when the two shows felt equal, then Raw became the "A" show by a wide margin up until summer 2008. That was when Smackdown became the "A" show for a while. Raw's quality went down significantly during this time and legitimately felt like the "B" show. This gap only increased when Raw went through the guest host concept. It was full of trash while Smackdown had better angles AND a better roster, on top of the fact that it's always had the higher match quality. Around the build up for Wrestlemania 26 Raw took back the "A" show rank from Smackdown and has remained the better show since then because most of the top guys were back on Raw, they started pushing new people, and ended the weekly guest host concept by only having a few every now and then.

 

[Notorious718]

In the short time that I've watched WWE, I thought Smackdown was best in 2009 when CM Punk and Jeff Hardy were headlining the show with their great feud. Besides them, you also had young up and comers like Dolph Ziggler and John Morrison breaking through as well as seasoned veterans like Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, and Edge working great matches as well. The brand had the perfect combination of youth and experience and it was just all around enjoyable for me.

 

[JWGunslinger]

Well I would say that there have been quite a few but this year stands out the most to me, while the red brand was plenty enjoyable this year I say that Smackdown was superior. CM Punk had a huge year on Raw but think about every huge moment on SD this year, ADR winning the Royal Rumble and going to Wrestlemania against Edge, Edge retiring and Christian winning the world title, Orton and Christian delivering some of the best matches in history. I would say that SD has gotten more positive attention this year than ever before, between the quality of matches and enjoyable feuds it has by far been the year for Smackdown!

 

[ccotreau1]

for me, I enjoyed Smackdown during the cruiserweight era (2002-2006) more than Raw, partly because until 2004, all I saw was Smackdown due to lack of cable. Nowadays, I mainly watch Raw, not that I don't watch Smackdown, but with the spoilers and stuff, what is the point of watching Smackdown, unless there is something when reading the spoilers, that catches my eye

 

[CarlSinclair]

SD was far better than RAW when Lesnar was on top v Angle with /team angle.
Show was on fire then /w Heyman
They had some good cruiser stuff going
Cena was decent around then

Heyman was head writer. I think from memory like 2002/3?

SD was way better than RAW thats for sure.

 

[loojceeb]

It has to certainly be 2002-2004 when Lesnar debuted Smackdown and won King of the Rings and 2003 Royal Rumble. Lesnar saved the show after The Rock left and we only had the Big Show and Undertaker basically. He came in and feud with the big show and taker, some of the most amazing matches that lesnar had put out. Then going on to feud with Angle, shelton benjamin and charlie haas. And oh god, I remembered when they fought lesnar and shelton and Charlie both put armbars onto lesnar and lesnar just lifted the both of them up into two powerbombs! Oh dear god, how can that not be epic. And also Lesnar had a game under his slogan SD "Here comes the pain" not SD vs RAW because Raw was okay at the time. The only thing that Raw had was Evolution vs the lockerroom and all the other story lines didnt really matter. Where as SD had the feuds of cena-lesnar, taker-lesnar, show-lesnar, angle-lesnar, Mcmahon-Lesnar, Heyman-Lesnar, Lesnar-zach *single leg guy*, and the later years Cena-show, cena-JBL, angle-mcmahon, Team lesnar - team Angle, Team lesnar turning on each other, Hardcore holly return and etc...mean while raw was revolving around Evolution only.

 

[god-soldier]

Smackdown has always been better than Raw since the brand split Raw's feuds with ECW in 06 and feud with Nexus in 2010 have been the only times they have kept up with Smackdown. But overall Smackdown has been the wrestling show period. This I believe is why we have these Raw supershows because the star power is on Smackdown that's also why HHH final WWE title run was on Smackdown as well. Smackdown builds up all the stars with great matches and mic time then were they are good enough they get sent to Raw but I feel like they should keep a main face of Smackdown like they do with Raw Cena has been the face of Raw since 2005 and it has changed so many times on Smackdown. It they kept a main face of smackdown people would want and anticipate more of a showdown of Smackdown vs Raw seeing Cena vs whoever is the face of smackdown. But I definately feel that Smackdown dominates Raw every year since the brand split

 

[The Brain]

I’ll put a little bit of a different thought out there. I enjoyed Smackdown more than Raw in 2000. This may not make much sense as the brand extension was still two years away so everybody was performing on both shows. For some reason I just found myself looking forward to Thursday more than Monday. Maybe it was because Smackdown was new. It just seemed more fresh than Raw. I guess there’s no logical explanation why as the shows could have been interchangeable back then but Smackdown seemed more fun to me for some reason.

 

[The Idiot]

I can't rank it as a whole...because frankly my memory isn't very good. But the greatest match I've ever seen on live TV was on Smackdown, and of course I can't remember the year.

Eddie Guerrero vs Edge - NO DQ

Seriously blew me away. For a PPV that match would have stole the show, I however, did not expect to see a match like this on a TV taping. I have probably forgot more about wrestling than most people will ever know...but there's one match that was embedded in my brain, and it was this one. Absolutely brilliant performance by both guys.

So to answer your question, whatever year ^ that was because I remember watching other great matches on Smackdown that year when Raw was more of the promo show.

 

[XXJJ]

Smackdown was incredible during the Taker/Lesnar era. They had so much talent (Angle, Edge, Eddie, Benoit, Ray etc). They were all putting on great matches and had great storylines. Watching that era of Smackdown was probably my favorite as a wrestling fan. They just blew Raw away.

SD right now is much better than Raw. Raw has been pretty much garbage after Summerslam. Thats the thing with Raw...every year they do something great and get everybody talking (Punk shoot promo, Walkout and Nexus) but eventually they fuck it up.

Smackdown week to week has been a much better program. Orton-Christian feud was great, they had some amazing matches. Henry's title reign is awesome, Sheamus turning babyface, Cody bringing back the old school ic title.. his street fight with Orton. I'm enjoying SD a lot more than Raw right now.