Smackdown around 2002/2003/2004
 

Who was booking Smackdown around late 2002-most of 2003? This was around the time where SD! was better than RAW. Brock was champ and the main focus of the show

What about 2004?

Heyman/Steph I thought.

Heyman.

When he was made GM, he actually had been taken off booking duties IIRC.

Yeah it was Heyman. Best wrestling show of the last 6 or 7 years was Heyman's Smackdown. Said it before, will say it again.

He had some great talent to work with.

The more I think about it, Brocks departure has really hurt the WWE. More so than I thought it did/would/has. I guess its cuz they put all their eggs in his basket and he up and quit.

The WWE has great talent to work with now, but their product is still shit. Heyman had the intelligence and the balls to put talent in the ring with other talent, and let them be talented.

Well said. :y:

Took the words right out of my keyboard.

Smackdown 2002/2003 was awesome. :y:

Especially if you look at the names they had then: Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, Brock Lesnar, Undertaker, John Cena, Rey Mysterio, Big Show, World's Greatest Tag Team, Edge, Chavo Guerrero... the list was endless.

The fact that Edge was good during those times says it all about the quality of the booking.

Now we've gone sliding down back into the big dark world of GENERIC in the WWE.

The mid 90's were shit as well. (I gotta say, it's better now than it was then.) It could be worse.

There's no skill in telling Benoit and Guerrero to go out and have a good match.

WWE didn't have 2 hr wrestling programs and PPV's every month back then. And they certainly did not have the roster they have now. I would say wreslting as a whole back then was even better then anything going on now.

And Cena made Smackdown during the time he feuded with Brock-when he turned face.

Raw wasn't exactly lacking in talent either: Jericho, HBK, Christian, Booker, Regal, The Rock, Trish, Molly, Victoria, Flair, Kane, RVD. I also have to include Goldberg in terms of big name talent. I don't know why everyone just craps all over Raw. It's not so much the talent, but what you do with it.

Brock vs Cena was the only Heel vs Heel Main event PPV right?

Brock was a face.

Hell, they weren't even the main event.

yea, Brock was a face, but got booed. Cena gor cheered. They were in Mass.

HBK faught Martel at Summerslam something in a heel/heel match.


But yea, Cena/Brock was a classic feud.

What were you though? 12 in 95? That would make it a sight more bearable than watching that shit when I did (18ish) and actually being a wrestler at the time. (Started when I was 16.) Really changes the situation. The mid '90s were the worst in the history of wrestling. Especially for me as a viewer. If I we're younger maybe, Markism/nostalgia, but damn it I only have bad memories form both WCW and the WWF. But that is what lead me to find ECW, so maybe I shouldn't complain...

See, that's what I'm kind of pointing out when I say wrestling as a whole. You had ECW to watch that was awesome. I watched ECW around this time (95) as well.

But even now, I'll go back and throw in Survivor Series 93, Havok 93, Summerslam 94 etc.. and can bear it more then anything now. Maybe it's a nostslgia factor and the fact that wrestling was still kayfabe, but I definately enjoy those times more then what's happening now.

Well, you do have IWA-MS and OVW. Which I personally love. And RoH has some damn fine things offer as well. (To bad I have little access to it.) It like the quality is out there now, but you have to go to so many places to get your fix. No one company is really appealing to everyone, its like each company is picking a small fraction of the market and only appealing to them.

You wouldn't think so, would you? Yet with all the talent in the WWE, and all the potential for MOTYCs, and all the opportunities the WWE has had to put on great showcases, they fuck it up constantly.

Heyman had the balls to get talent, and trust the fans to buy into the fact that they were talented. The WWE is afraid to push Shelton Benjamin because they don't feel he's talented enough away from the ring. Paul London & Brian Kendrick are probably too small to be anything major in the WWE. Paul Heyman would be able to turn them into something, and I believe that's because he understood the importance of a mid-card, and how to best utilise talent.

It may not seem like a gift, but looking at how much better Heyman's product was than almost anything the WWE has put out in the new millenium, I think the evidence says it is.

But then that's not necessarily the product of Heyman, just simple common sense.