WWF's Biggest Success Story? (WWE Smackdown)

Member Name: Smark1985

Product:	WWE Smackdown
Date:	06/05/01 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Every wrestler is featured, major storylines develop and start, a must see show!

Disadvantages: Not quite as important as Raw Is War.

The wrestling industry experienced a boom in 1999. After 5 years of mediocrity, wrestling was once again the hot thing for teenagers across Britain and America. New anti-hero wrestlers such as "Stone Cold Steve Austin" and "The Rock" were becoming legitimate celebrities, appearing on talk shows, music shows and even a few serial dramas in the U.S. Wrestling was hotter than it had ever been before. Videos were going straight to No.1, as were CD's. If a WWF wrestler was advertised in a newspaper, then that paper would sell more copies than usual. But, with millions of fans all across the world craving for wrestling action, there was only one real show which the top wrestlers would appear on. Raw Is War. This flagship show earned Sky Sports its biggest T.V rating in 1999, and it was the most watched show on U.S television as a whole. Sensing that they could capitalise on this overwhelming success, WWF launched a new show... SmackDown.

The name for the show was inspired by hugely popular wrestler "The Rock", as it was part of his famous catchphrase "I'm gonna lay the SmackDown on your candy ass!". It was perhaps the most famous catchphrase in wrestling history, every fan, and perhaps even non-fan had heard the phrase. Everybody knew what it was, and everybody knew what it meant. "Smackdown" was street talk. In the Autumn of 1999 the show debuted on U.S channel UPN. It scored tremendous ratings and had the highest watched 1st half- hour in U.S T.V history! It was overwhelming, WWF were planning to treat it as an experiment, they were unsure whether it would be a success, it was more than that. It breathed new life into wrestling, as two nights a week were wrestling nights. Monday's and Thursday's in the States, but as we get them later, for us it was Friday's and Saturday's. Well, actually not quite.

Sky were reluctant to air Smackdown. Even though Raw Is War was their highest ra
ted show, they too had doubts about whether it would be a success. Again, the show came through, and it was watched by a million viewers, a number of viewers for Sky normally reserved for shows such as The Simpsons! The viewership was so tremendously high that Sky also began to show Smackdown on Sky One in the daytime's, with the violence censored. This was a very wise move that has benefited the channel and WWF. The midday time opened up a new audience of younger children that would not normally be able to watch wrestling as it was on at a late night time of 10pm. It benefited Sky One also, as the midday viewing figures shot up. Could Smackdown do any wrong?

There is no easy way to answer that question. The viewing figures were phenomenal on both sides of the Atlantic, it was a mercandise machine. There was a Smackdown Playstation game released that became the biggest selling sports game of 2000. Toys, books, magazines... Smackdown became stapled to everything. The exposure was massive, but in all of this there was trouble.

The Parents Television Council of America (PTC) launched a campaign against the WWF. They felt that the programming, such shows as Raw and Smackdown, were a bad influence to children and should be banned. This affected the popularity of Smackdown as many parents began to stop letting their children watch the show. The PTC called on sponsors of the shows, such brands as Coca-Cola, to pull their advertising from the show. They did. Although it is certainly true to an extent that this didn't affect WWF that much, they still toned down Smackdown to make it more accessible to a wider audience. But a year on, WWF have upped the ante against the flailing PTC, and Smackdown is once again showing all of the chair shots, lewd language and acts that we have all began to accept as wrestling.

Smackdown is the secondary show of the WWF behind Raw. This is perhaps evident by the commentary team of Michael Cole and Tazz, the
y are not the main commentators (Jim Ross and Paul Heyman), but they are beginning to earn respect in the way that they call the matches, and Tazz has developed somewhat of a cult following. Main developments in storylines tend to happen more frequently on Raw, but that is not to say that Smackdown is not important. All of the big names appear every week, and storylines continue to play out, with big events happening on Smackdown most weeks. Here are just a few of the big news stories that have happened on Smackdown since it's debut.

* Triple H defeating the Rock for the WWF Title in October 1999.

* The return of Cactus Jack, January 2000.

* Kurt Angle's infamous kiss with Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley, August 2000.

* The formation of The Right To Censor (a jab at the PTC), July 2000.

But as mentioned, that is just a small selection of events that make Smackdown must see T.V. If you are a fan of WWF then you simply cannot miss this show, if you do then you will be left behind in the fast moving storylines that develop. Whilst not quite as important as Raw, you would be a fool to miss this... in fact, only a "jabroni" would miss this!

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