WWE News: 15th Anniversary Special Of ‘Friday Night Smackdown’ To Air Next Month
Friday Night Smackdown is the second-biggest show on WWE programming, well, before NXT gives Smackdown a run for its money. Nevertheless, it made amazing strides during the latter stages of the Attitude Era and onward towards the Ruthless Aggression period and beyond. Even with its overall success as a secondary show, the program took a step backwards throughout the last few years.
Reason simply being, they have no star power and since Triple H started to oversee the company, the brand split dissipated and Monday Night Raw dominated the show. Raw still does much better in the ratings, but at least Smackdown isn’t as bad as Impact Wrestling. TNA scored a.3, while Smackdown scored.8 on a much-harder night of television.
After Edge, Jeff Hardy, the Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio and Alberto Del Rio parted ways with the company or got injured, Smackdown turned into a Raw Recap show. There is good news for the Smackdown faithful that will make one specific Friday night much better than Raw could ever be.
WWE announced on Monday night’s edition of Raw that the company will air a special celebration of the 15th anniversary of SmackDown on Friday, October 10th on the SyFy network.
The first episode was April 29, 1999. Fifteen years later, the program really has made strides in the wrestling community. Even though it is on Friday, the WWE Universe makes it imperative that Smackdown is at least skimmed through on a weekly basis. If the ratings took into account all of the DVR’s that are used for Smackdown, their rating would be through the roof. However, they don’t use DVRs as a proper basis for ratings.
Usually for Smackdown celebrations, WWE pulls out the big guns to entertain the masses. Normally, a special segment will be added that hasn’t been seen for a long time. For example, there is a slight chance that Edge could return for that night. Absolutely nothing is confirmed, this is just a prediction. He could return with the Cutting Edge talk show with Dean Ambrose or Seth Rollins.
Perhaps there could be an “Edge and Christian” reunion. That by itself would sell the Smackdown 15th anniversary. Since Smackdown is staying on Friday nights for the foreseeable future, WWE must do something for the fans to keep them interested in Smackdown. Friday night is the night to go out and enjoy the nightlife. Not many people spend it watching TV. To each his or her own, but that is just the popular opinion.
WWE could pull out the big guns and really make Smackdown’s 15th anniversary one for the ages. Since CM Punk isn’t coming back, let’s hope for a one night-return from the Rated-R Superstar, or even better, Mick Foley.
[Images via WWE.com and Google]
