Is Smackdown! becoming more "watchable"?

[Impeccable]

I was watching Smackdown this week and I just got the feeling that it was more watchable. If you take away the Giant Khali/Undertaker match, the show had a much better and more even feel to it than it has had in a long time. Some of the new talent is interesting i.e Turkay (sp?), and JBL on commentary just adds to the program. His reaction to the news that "The Boogeyman" is returning, for some reason had me in stitches.

The matches didn't suck either...Mr. Kennedy vs Tatanka was quite enjoyable. Sure some of the booking has been questionable recently, like giving us a PPV match for free (before the Great American bash they had Rey vs Booker as the main event, yet wanted people to pay to watch it two days later), but this weeks show was MUCH better in my opinion.

Thoughts anyone?

[Chavo Classic]

Smackdown becoming more watchable reminds me of a Mr Burns election campaign.

Adivsor: "Well done Mr Burns, you're up four points in the polls"
Burns: "What am I at now?"
Advisor: "Four"

Smackdown is more watchable, but it's still doesn't warrant any of my attention.

[Londoner]

Too many squash/meaningless/boring matches for me. Used to be really into it but i think all the injuries have really damaged the momentum SD once had. Lashley V Finlay was a good match though, but that's all i really cared about, don't remember seeing anything between rey and chavo for some reason.

[ron the dial]

I watched SmackDown! this week for the first time in ages, and I actually enjoyed it. It wasn't anything mind blowing, but I think the fact that it wasn't RAW made me like it a lot more. I've just gotten so sick of the faces that I see week in and week out on RAW that the SmackDown! guys were a nice change of pace. And, honestly, I didn't mind the Taker/Khali match. It definitley could have been much worse.

[Londoner]

Weapon x if you had been watching Smackdown while it was actually watchable then you would know where i'm coming from.

[Jaton]

BOOOO-URNES

[Kane Knight]

People say this all the time. I don't think it's even been a month since someone said it. With all this improvement, you'd think it'd be somewhere by now.

[El Fangel]

People say this all the time. I don't think it's even been a month since someone said it. With all this improvement, you'd think it'd be somewhere by now.

I agree, but my first thoughts when I read the thread title, even though I haven't seen Smackdown since Bookers Corination was "doubt it", And if Sharmelle is still there then the answer for me anyway is no

[6to1]

thanks to jbl i think it is better then raw, then khali walks out and kills the show.

[Team Sheep]

As Alienoid says, Smackdown is currently the best brand.

[Gertner]

jbl is gold on commentary

[The One]

People say this all the time. I don't think it's even been a month since someone said it. With all this improvement, you'd think it'd be somewhere by now.

You would think...and yet...

[El Fangel]

And yes, while IMO the show is in the shitter, JBL makes it half-ways worth watching....or listening since you don't have to watch it to hear him.

[McLegend]

SD will get better once CW arrives.

[St. Jimmy]

No. Not at all.

[McLegend]

I bet it will.

[Russenmafia]

SD! has always been the better show. The wrestling is better, matches are longer and their single brand PPV's are better than RAW's as well.

[Londoner]

But they keep getting injuries, and its finally caught up with them. End the roster split now WWE, ffs!

[Dorkchop]

I think Smackdown is the same as it's been for a while now. You think it's going to get a lot better, but it just doesn't.

[Kane Knight]

Smackdown is the ultimate wrestling shwo though, in that it sells you on promise. Raw can't do that. TNA tries to, but fucking fails miserably. ECW's sorta doing it...But not quite.

[DS]

If I want to go to sleep at 7 PM on a Friday, Smackdown would be the first thing I turn on.

[#1-norm-fan]

I wish there were more matches like Kennedy vs. Tatanka.

I liked how it wasn't a high profile match that you would get upset about getting on free tv if you paid for a PPV but it was actually entertaining and put Kennedy over well. GREAT way to do things.

Smackdown is making strides but it's still got a way to go.

[darkpower]

I wonder when Benoit is coming back (they still have him in the SD intro, so I guess they at least PLAN on him returning at some point).

But yeah, chances are that SD is getting better. If they had some better booking sometimes, SD would REALLY make due with what they had.

And imagine if Edge LOST the title tonight. I would think that would've been VERY good for SD.

[What Would Kevin Do?]

Since I have to channels that show it here, and neither of them has showed it for the past two weeks (One interupts for football, the other for...... soccer?), I'm going to say "Yes, it is more watchable."

[FourFifty]

Smackdown <strike>is more watchable, but it's</strike> still doesn't warrant any of my attention.

[Mr. Nerfect]

SmackDown! is the best wrestling show on television, in my opinion.

Everything clicks on SmackDown!. I actually get caught up in it. JBL is the best colour commentator in the world today, Paul London & Brian Kendrick do stuff, you have impressive big men in Bobby Lashley and Sylvester Terkay (give me them over Umaga anyday) and Finlay and William Regal are so good in the ring it's not funny.

People complain about guys like William Regal never getting a push because the main event if full, but then he does and "SmackDown! has been forced to push mid-carders". Talent is allowed to be talent on SmackDown!, and I love it that way.

The only black spot of SmackDown! is the waste of space certain performers provide. The Undertaker need never waste my time with his ring intro, again. I will be able to live if they cut down on Vito's shenanigans, as well. A KC James and Idol Stevens squash of two jobbers with London & Kendrick then coming out to brawl would have been much better television. I like Vito, but his character is going nowhere. He needs direction and fast.

On a week-by-week basis, SmackDown! survives. Storylines are actually told by the matches (see Tatanka's recent losing streak) and it doesn't feel like a repeat every week. There are no McMahons, also. Montell Vontavious Porter shall be debuting soon, and Chris Benoit can't be too far off from returning, nor can Paul Burchill. I expect SmackDown! to get a very interesting place in coming months.

[Mr. Nerfect]

It is very unlikely, but I would love to see the CW Network give SmackDown! two shows every week. One on Thursday and another on Friday? It would allow talent more chance to build characters, etc. Take Sylvester Terkay and Elijah Burke. One could compete on Thursday, and the other Friday. You'd be able to fit more talent on the shows, which the WWE seems intent on doing. Any given week, enough talent misses out to put on a seperate show that week, so why not go for it?

[St. Jimmy]

It is very unlikely, but I would love to see the CW Network give SmackDown! two shows every week. One on Thursday and another on Friday? It would allow talent more chance to build characters, etc. Take Sylvester Terkay and Elijah Burke. One could compete on Thursday, and the other Friday. You'd be able to fit more talent on the shows, which the WWE seems intent on doing. Any given week, enough talent misses out to put on a seperate show that week, so why not go for it?

Yes, let's give a shitty brand another show and let's NOT give ECW it's own tapings/venues. BRILLIANT.

[Ben Rodrigues]

Yes, let's give a shitty brand another show and let's NOT give ECW it's own tapings/venues. BRILLIANT.

Yes, brilliant indeed! I'm starting to see some consistancy out of you. I like it. :D

[MMercM]

Here's what they EXACTLY need to do with SD.

1: Depush Terkay, Push his manager.

I don't care what happens to Terkay. His manager should either go singles, or Burke and Terkay should go for tag team gold. Smackdown could use an extra tag team.

2: Push cruiserweights.

They had what was shaping up to be an excellent feud between the Mexicools, and it's just dropped for ECW. All the Cruisers need to stay on one brand, and that needs to be the focal point of that brand.

3: Get rid of the useless squashes, have longer matches.

Having longer matches would possibly reduce the total amount of matches, but the ring time could possibly increase. With SD's slim roster, this would also act as a bit of a.... masking agent, for the lack of a better term, considering you would need less wrestlers to do a better show.

4: Get rid of Khali, put Undertaker and Angle in the same brand. Preferrably Smackdown.

Angle needs to go where he belongs. Smackdown. Khali has to go. I don't care where anymore, if he can't go on live TV, then he sure as HELL shouldn't be on edited. He is just wasting time. Once he's gone, get another Taker - Angle feud going. That was a god damn good feud. One that made me think that MAYBE... just maybe Smackdown was on an upward spiral.

[darkpower]

It is very unlikely, but I would love to see the CW Network give SmackDown! two shows every week. One on Thursday and another on Friday? It would allow talent more chance to build characters, etc. Take Sylvester Terkay and Elijah Burke. One could compete on Thursday, and the other Friday. You'd be able to fit more talent on the shows, which the WWE seems intent on doing. Any given week, enough talent misses out to put on a seperate show that week, so why not go for it?

They kinda do. It's called Velocity, and unfortunatly, it's only on wwe.com.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Yes, let's give a shitty brand another show and let's NOT give ECW it's own tapings/venues. BRILLIANT.

SmackDown! > RAW and ECW combined. What are you calling shitty? If it were shitty (like RAW is now), I would agree with you.

[Mr. Nerfect]

They kinda do. It's called Velocity, and unfortunatly, it's only on wwe.com.

Nah, they got rid of that.

[Mr. Nerfect]

Here's what they EXACTLY need to do with SD.

1: Depush Terkay, Push his manager.

I don't care what happens to Terkay. His manager should either go singles, or Burke and Terkay should go for tag team gold. Smackdown could use an extra tag team.

2: Push cruiserweights.

They had what was shaping up to be an excellent feud between the Mexicools, and it's just dropped for ECW. All the Cruisers need to stay on one brand, and that needs to be the focal point of that brand.

3: Get rid of the useless squashes, have longer matches.

Having longer matches would possibly reduce the total amount of matches, but the ring time could possibly increase. With SD's slim roster, this would also act as a bit of a.... masking agent, for the lack of a better term, considering you would need less wrestlers to do a better show.

4: Get rid of Khali, put Undertaker and Angle in the same brand. Preferrably Smackdown.

Angle needs to go where he belongs. Smackdown. Khali has to go. I don't care where anymore, if he can't go on live TV, then he sure as HELL shouldn't be on edited. He is just wasting time. Once he's gone, get another Taker - Angle feud going. That was a god damn good feud. One that made me think that MAYBE... just maybe Smackdown was on an upward spiral.

1. Sylvester Terkay = money. In a few months, everyone will be on his bandwagon. He's a big guy with talent. I love Elijah Burke, moreso than I do Terkay, and I think it is kind of shit he doesn't get the opportunity to show his stuff as often, but Terkay equals money, Burke just equals talent. We all know how the WWE usually fucks up talent.

This also goes with my "give SmackDown! another show which isn't plagued with recaps like Velocity used to be" idea. On one show of the week, Terkay can pick up the win, the next, Burke gets a victory.

2. I agree with this. The WWE has been pretty good to Gregory Helms, but right now he really only has Funaki and Jimmy Yang has potential challengers for the Cruiserweight Title. I was an advocate of putting Jeff Hardy and Shannon Moore on SmackDown! to compete for the title. Unfortunately the WWE is too stupid to put cruiserweights on the show with the Cruiserweight Title.

3. I'm fairly certain SmackDown! has longer matches than RAW and ECW. They also have more matches. That's part of the reason I like SmackDown!. I do agree that they should pick and choose their matches more carefully. This past week, Vito vs. Scott Fowler seemed out of place. I like Vito, but if they're not going anywhere with his streak, they really could have put it on hold for a week. I think a KC James & Idol Stevens squash would have made more sense in context with the show. Have Paul London & Brian Kendrick run out and attack James & Stevens after the match. Try and get some life pumped into the WWE Tag Team Championship feud (something they kind of did this week, but could have done even further).

4. If anything, The Undertaker should leave SmackDown!. Smackers doesn't need The Undertaker, Smackers doesn't need Kurt Angle. The less main eventers the better, in my opinion. It gives more time to the lower-card matches.

[ThruTheWire]

Smackdown has been watchable for a long time now..

[Fox]

In the sense that you can literally sit down, open your eyes and focus your attention on the TV screen, yet, it is watchable.


In the sense that it will kill nearly all of your braincells, no, it has not been watchable.

[Crippla]

I still think SmackDown! isn't as good as Raw but its slightly improving but It is worst than Raw as far as "the same old thing" goes. I am getting sick of a lot of things I see on SmackDown! week in and week out like Vito's pointless squash matches in a dress(the gimmicks going nowhere right now) and they need to do something new with the U.S. Title Finlay/Regal/Lashley angle.

[MMercM]

1. Sylvester Terkay = money. In a few months, everyone will be on his bandwagon. He's a big guy with talent. I love Elijah Burke, moreso than I do Terkay, and I think it is kind of shit he doesn't get the opportunity to show his stuff as often, but Terkay equals money, Burke just equals talent. We all know how the WWE usually fucks up talent.

This also goes with my "give SmackDown! another show which isn't plagued with recaps like Velocity used to be" idea. On one show of the week, Terkay can pick up the win, the next, Burke gets a victory.

3. I'm fairly certain SmackDown! has longer matches than RAW and ECW. They also have more matches. That's part of the reason I like SmackDown!. I do agree that they should pick and choose their matches more carefully. This past week, Vito vs. Scott Fowler seemed out of place. I like Vito, but if they're not going anywhere with his streak, they really could have put it on hold for a week. I think a KC James & Idol Stevens squash would have made more sense in context with the show. Have Paul London & Brian Kendrick run out and attack James & Stevens after the match. Try and get some life pumped into the WWE Tag Team Championship feud (something they kind of did this week, but could have done even further).

4. If anything, The Undertaker should leave SmackDown!. Smackers doesn't need The Undertaker, Smackers doesn't need Kurt Angle. The less main eventers the better, in my opinion. It gives more time to the lower-card matches.

1: That would be a good idea. But, I still don't see Terkay as any more than a barely over heel who armbars people for no apparent reason, which is why I would like to see Burke more.

3: Smackdown might have longer matches, but they also have too many squashes, with unknowns, even. If they only had, say, 4 matches. Last week's Smackdown contained the following...

Batista def. Sylvan
Sylvester Terkay def. Scotty 2 Hotty
Mr. Kennedy def. Tatanka
Lashley def. Finlay (DQ)
Undertaker def. The Great Khali (Last Man Standing Match)
Vito def. Scott Fowler

Batista vs Sylvan, S2H and Terkay, Vito vs Fowler... All unnessecary. Tatanka-Kennedy, Lashley-Finlay, and Khali-Taker all were either good matches, or served a purpose to further a storyline. Now, Sylvan and S2H may have had a good match, but putting Batista vs Terkay, that could culmonate (spelling?) into a good feud, with some watchable matches. There may be less matches, but the unnessecary squashes need to go.

4: That I can agree with. Which goes into my idea of pushing Cruisers.

[Russenmafia]

SD! still needs the main event guys. They aint going to sell the single brand PPV's without Taker, Batista, Booker etc. I wish they would stop Vito's push as the dress wearing gimmick is terrible and give the time to Helms. Since Helms has ditched the Hurricane gimmick and became CW champ on SD!, people can see how talented he really is.

[Mr. Nerfect]

3: Smackdown might have longer matches, but they also have too many squashes, with unknowns, even. If they only had, say, 4 matches. Last week's Smackdown contained the following...

Batista def. Sylvan
Sylvester Terkay def. Scotty 2 Hotty
Mr. Kennedy def. Tatanka
Lashley def. Finlay (DQ)
Undertaker def. The Great Khali (Last Man Standing Match)
Vito def. Scott Fowler

Batista vs Sylvan, S2H and Terkay, Vito vs Fowler... All unnessecary. Tatanka-Kennedy, Lashley-Finlay, and Khali-Taker all were either good matches, or served a purpose to further a storyline. Now, Sylvan and S2H may have had a good match, but putting Batista vs Terkay, that could culmonate (spelling?) into a good feud, with some watchable matches. There may be less matches, but the unnessecary squashes need to go.

The WWE no longer has Velocity, or another show to showcase their talents, so they need to get guys like Sylvan and Scotty 2 Hotty on the card, somehow. Terkay vs. Hotty was a pretty decent match, with a neat Muscle Buster by Terkay at the end. It certainly went towards putting him over. I think Terkay could find a better submission move than the armbar, though.

Batista vs. Sylvan was kind of a waste, but I think it was more there to warm up the crowd, get Batista used to the feel of the ring, again, and to build some "Oh, he's going to kick ass" momentum heading into Summerslam. It was barely a match, so it could probably not be counted as much a match as a promo.

Vito vs. Scott Fowler seemed good to me at the time (I think they may turn Vito into a parody of Goldberg should he sign with TNA), but I do agree this match could have been scrapped. I do like the idea of having as many matches as possible on TV, though (it's what seperates it from RAW and ECW), so I'd have replaced it with a match that would be a little more poignant. KC James & Idol Stevens vs. Scott Fowler and some other guy? James & Stevens made an appearance earlier, and it is obvious the WWE wants heat on the guys. They may be slowly doing that, but they could have taken it even further by having them defeat two jobbers with their Catapult/Missile Dropkick finishing move (I bet they call it something like "The Indefinite Detention"). It would have been another squash, but it would have added to the show, and James & Stevens actually need to be put over. Paul London & Brian Kendrick could have run out afterwards and beaten down James & Stevens to add more tension to the feud.

If you wanted to use someone who hadn't appeared earlier on the show, Gregory Helms or a returning Hardcore Holly would have been a better choice. But still, it's good to see some consistency within the WWE.

I think the problem with SmackDown!, is that the WWE doesn't know which talent should be there, and which talent shouldn't. Jillian Hall needs to make the jump to RAW, ASAP. Kristal Marshall could probably go, too. Have Layla El become a part of SmackDown!, seeing as they will likely want to keep the Diva numbers up. Matt Striker would fit in with Michelle McCool's boys (why would they want to send him to ECW?). Shannon Moore should really be trying to help the Cruiserweight Division there. With heel World Tag Team Champions, I think Matt Hardy should leave SmackDown! for RAW.

SmackDown! seems to be the source of many needed roster adjustments in the WWE.

[Mr. Nerfect]

SD! still needs the main event guys. They aint going to sell the single brand PPV's without Taker, Batista, Booker etc. I wish they would stop Vito's push as the dress wearing gimmick is terrible and give the time to Helms. Since Helms has ditched the Hurricane gimmick and became CW champ on SD!, people can see how talented he really is.

Oh, they still need main eventers, yes, but I don't think they need MORE main eventers. When Chris Benoit returns, I think that is it.

The Undertaker never really appears on SmackDown!, anyway, so he can be cut without much problem. I certainly wouldn't get rid of Batista or King Booker.