. External links SmackDown, also referred to as SmackDown Live or simply SmackDown, is a that debuted on April 29, 1999. The show's name also refers to the, to which WWE employees are assigned to work and perform. SmackDown is broadcast live on Tuesday nights on the but will be aired on networks beginning on October 4, 2019 and will move back to Fridays. The show used to be broadcast on Thursday nights but moved to Friday on September 9, 2005, before returning to Thursdays on January 15, 2015. On July 19, 2016, it was moved to a live broadcast on Tuesday night. Debuted in the United States on the on April 29, 1999, but after the, SmackDown!
Began airing on in September 2006. The show was moved to in October 2008, to on October 1, 2010 and to on January 7, 2016. It complements as the second of WWE's two main weekly programs.
Jan 19, 2018 The Top 25 WWE Entrance Songs of All Time. But his theme music is simplistic in the way it checks off nearly all the boxes on being the perfect WWE. Name all WWE superstars who have competed in a televised match (on a PPV, Raw, Smackdown, etc) in the WWE in 2003. Test your knowledge on this sports quiz to.
As of March 3, 2017, all archived episodes of the show are available for on demand viewing via the. SmackDown has been broadcast from 163 arenas, in 148 cities and towns, in seven countries (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, in and for, in 2005, in 2007, and in 2011). Prior to switching to the current live format, taped episodes premiered a few hours earlier in Ireland and the United Kingdom and a day earlier in Australia, Canada, and than the United States, due to time differences. For international broadcast listings, see below. The show celebrated its 15th anniversary on October 10, 2014, and the on October 16, 2018.
The first SmackDown! Logo used between April 29, 1999 and from August 26, 1999 to August 9, 2001. WWF SmackDown! (as it was originally known) was set up to compete against WCW's Thursday night show,. In the spirit of the WWF's, the show was originally planned to be two hours of in primetime TV. However, this did not work out, and instead SmackDown! Became a complementary show to augment.
First appeared on April 29, 1999 using the Raw set as a single television special on. On August 26, 1999, SmackDown! Officially debuted on UPN. Like WCW Thunder, SmackDown! Was recorded on Tuesdays and then broadcast on Thursdays.
The new WWF show was so popular that WCW moved Thunder to Wednesdays in the hope of holding on to fans rather than losing them to the WWF. SmackDown!, like Thunder, made heavy use of the color blue, earning it the nickname 'The Blue Show' amongst wrestling fans. Throughout the show's early existence, routinely called SmackDown! 'his show', in reference to the fact that the name was derived from one of his, 'Layeth the smacketh down'. In March 2002, WWE underwent the 'brand extension', a process in which WWE divided itself into two branches. The two divisions, Raw and SmackDown!, would compete against each other. The brand extension was made public during a telecast of Raw on March 18, 2002, and became official on the April 1, 2002 episode of Raw.
On the August 29, 2011 episode of Raw, it was announced that performers from Raw and SmackDown were no longer exclusive to their respective brand, thus effectively dissolving the brand extension. The October 14, 2011, episode made SmackDown the second-longest-running weekly episodic television series of American television history (behind Raw, which surpassed that mark on August 1, 2005). On January 18, 2013, SmackDown celebrated its 700th episode. On October 10, 2014, SmackDown celebrated its 15th Anniversary. The 15th season premiere opened with a new theme, '. To help celebrate the 15th anniversary, came out first, then Laurinaitis and Long, respectively, the latter of which kept one-upping each other for the main event of the night until McMahon decided to keep the that Long suggested, on the condition Laurinaitis and Long be the captains of each team like at WrestleMania XXVIII. Long's team won the match.
On December 16, 2014, SmackDown aired its 800th episode, which aired live on, featuring the main event between. On May 25, 2016, as part of the re-implementation of the between Raw and SmackDown, it was announced that SmackDown would become a live program on Tuesday nights. On the July 11, 2016 episode of Raw, named the commissioner of SmackDown.
Then next week on Raw, was revealed as the new SmackDown General Manager. On July 22, 2016, General Manager Daniel Bryan revealed the new SmackDown logo on his official Twitter page. On April 10, 2018, SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon announced that Daniel Bryan was back as a full-time WWE wrestler and named the new General Manager. Network changes From its show's inception in 1999, SmackDown was first aired on UPN. WWE's ' status with Viacom on may have prompted it to move SmackDown! To the for the fall 2005 season.
UPN received better ratings on Fridays than it did before with its movie night. In addition, UPN had been able to hold on to the ratings from Thursday nights, most notably with comedian 's sitcom. In January 2006, UPN renewed SmackDown' for two more years. After had been canceled, SmackDown moved into Enterprise's former timeslot. WWE promoted this move with the 'TV that's changing Friday nights.' Made its season premiere on September 9, 2005. On September 22, 2006, Friday Night SmackDown!
Debuted on, a joint venture between (owner of ) and (a subsidiary of, majority owner of ). On April 20, 2007, SmackDown! Celebrated its 400th episode. SmackDown debuted on in the United States on October 3, 2008.
SmackDown also debuted with a new theme-song. The premiere episode on MyNetworkTV attracted 3.2 million viewers. On March 20, 2009, SmackDown celebrated its 500th episode. SmackDown moved to NBCUniversal in 2010 and made its live premiere on Syfy on October 1, 2010, retaining its Friday night timeslot. Prior to this premiere of SmackDown, Michael Cole hosted a 'pre-game' show. According to the, the move saw Syfy paying close to $30 million for the show as opposed to the $20 million paid by its former network MyNetworkTV. The move also resulted in network, SmackDown being advertised more frequently on Syfy's, which airs Raw.
Same week encores of SmackDown were also added to 's and 's Saturday night schedule as a result of the move in the spot that had been held by NXT. On January 7, 2016, SmackDown moved to Syfy's sister channel,. With the move, all top three WWE programs – Raw, SmackDown and – would air on the same network for the first time ever.
According to Lawler, SmackDown may move back to Friday nights on USA Network and go live. SmackDown remained on Thursday nights when the show moved from Syfy to USA Network on January 7. The first SmackDown episode on USA Network had 2.75 million viewers. The show's return to Thursday nights – something that was rumored as early as August 2014 – was made official by Syfy and WWE on November 6, 2014.
The return to Thursday nights was expected to help attract a younger audience to Syfy, as well as more premium advertising dollars from marketers, who tend to spend more to promote their products, especially film releases, on the night as consumers head into the weekend. The last SmackDown airing on Friday nights had 2.43 million viewers with a 0.7 share. On June 26, 2018, and announced a five-year agreement to air SmackDown in a deal worth $205 million per year. The agreement came as WWE's previous broadcast deal with 's to air both SmackDown and was set to expire. Fox had hoped to acquire Raw for the Fox network and SmackDown for Fox Sports 1. However, amid a competitive bidding situation, NBCUniversal focused its efforts on renewing Raw, freeing up Fox to pursue SmackDown. Under the new deal, SmackDown will move to Friday nights on Fox beginning on October 4, 2019.
Production WWE taped SmackDown on Tuesday evenings to air on Thursday evenings on Syfy the same week. However, SmackDown had aired occasional live specials on Tuesday nights (which are then replayed in its usual Thursday night timeslot). The show began broadcasting in beginning with the January 25, 2008 episode of SmackDown, where a new set (which became universal for all WWE weekly programming) debuted.
Following the first broadcast in HD, the used since the show's inception disappeared from all references pertaining to 'SmackDown', including the official logo, which resembles the 2001–2008 logo, but with a darker blue scheme. The set used from the show's debut from August 26, 1999, until August 9, 2001 The early set included an oval-shaped entrance and stage (dubbed the 'Ovaltron') which made it stand out from the Raw Is War set with its rectangular Titantrons. Later productions gained the ability to move the Ovaltron either to the left or to the right of the stage. In August 2001, as part of celebrating SmackDown! 's second anniversary, the show received a new and set, which consisted of a fist centered above the entrance with the WWF/E scratch logo above it, and many glass panes along the sides strongly resembling shattered glass with two TitanTrons on each side. From October 26, 2012 until April 4, 2014, SmackDown began using 'Born 2 Run' by 7Lions as its, with 'This Life' by and Cody B. Ware serving as the secondary theme, then a swap was made, as 'Born 2 Run' was used as a secondary theme, when 'This Life' is used as SmackDown's main theme.
Prior to October 26, 2012, SmackDown with ' by while 'Hangman' by served as the secondary theme song. Upon SmackDown 's debut on Syfy in 2010, it replaced the previous theme song 'Let it Roll' by Divide the Day. As of August 3, 2012, the show has used the modified WWE HD universal set, which debuted at on July 23. From September 21, 2012 until October 26, 2012, October 4, 2013 until November 1, 2013, October 3 and 31, 2014 and October 2 and 30, 2015, WWE worked in conjunction with to raise awareness for by adorning the SmackDown set with pink ribbons and a special pink middle-rope in the ring. SmackDown's ring ropes were usually blue from 1999–2012 (although they were black for a period between 2001 and 2002). They remained blue until December 2012 when they were permanently changed to white, with all WWE programming now using white ring ropes.
On August 22, 2014, SmackDown switched to a full 16:9 letterbox presentation, with a down-scaled version of the native HD feed on a 4:3 SD feed. Like Raw (which also switched to a full 16:9 letterbox presentation four days earlier on August 18), the new WWE logo is seen on the ring's turnbuckle covers and also, on the lower-right hand corner of the screen. On August 29, 2014, the Syfy network logo moved to the lower left-hand corner of the screen.
Although the graphics were re-positioned, SmackDown continued to use a variation of the graphics package that had been in use since its first HD broadcast in January 2008, until the show moved to Thursday nights on January 15, 2015, when an all-new graphics package (now optimized for the 16:9 format) and intro video were introduced along with a revised SmackDown logo. On March 26, 2015, WWE added a small board to the left side of the ring on SmackDown, similar to Raw.
On the September 14, 2015 season premiere of Raw, the middle rope was colored gold. Throughout the month of October 2015, the WWE broadcast table, entrance ramp, and ring skirts were co-branded with Susan G. Komen for the cure of breast cancer. Also, the middle ring rope was pink to promote the fight against breast cancer. Following the brand split in 2016, the ropes return to its original blue color as well as debuting a new set. The post brand extension set was almost identically to the set from 2009-2013 and caused some negative feedback among online fans for re-using an old stage design.
A month after the new set debut, a more distinctive and elaborate stage was created for SmackDown. The current stage used is a new design with multiple LED side panels on each side with a titan-tron in a semi circle in the center.
The new set also introduced LED floor panels on the entrance ramp. Feedback was more positive for this set design. Bold song titles are currently being used as the opening theme. Logo history Logo Dates used Note April 29, 1999 – August 9, 2001 August 16, 2001 – January 18, 2008 Friday Night variant used from 2005. January 25, 2008 – September 24, 2010 Tenth Anniversary logo used from 2009, exclamation point removed. October 1, 2010 – January 9, 2015 January 16, 2015 – July 19, 2016 July 26, 2016 – Present Cultural references On July 10, 2007, included the word smackdown in.
Merriam Webster defined a 'smackdown' as:. The act of knocking down or bringing down an opponent.
A contest in entertainment wrestling. A decisive defeat. A confrontation between rivals or competitors. The traces the use of the word smackdown in English back at least as far as 1990, but notes that a professional wrestling television show 'popularised' the term.
Special episodes. Main article: Various on-air personalities appear on the show, including the wrestlers (both men and women), ring announcers, commentators, and on-screen authority figures. SmackDown also has had various recurring on-air segments hosted by members of the roster. Other SmackDown-branded properties Although SmackDown has been the second largest show in the WWE, the company's overuse of the name led to its usage beyond its namesake program.
During the campaign, the WWE launched the SmackDown! Your Vote program. The name was also used when WWE released its 2015 film and 's show.
Broadcast In addition to broadcasts on, and in the United States, SmackDown also appears on-air internationally. Canada From 1999 to early 2015, SmackDown aired in Canada matching the United States airtime and currently airs on (previously known as Headline Sports until 2000 and The Score from 2000–2013). When SmackDown moved back Thursday nights, the show was broadcast on Wednesday nights (with the exception of live episodes) in Canada January 14, 2015 to July 13, 2016, due to being aired on Sportsnet 360 on Thursday nights, as part of a 12-year deal between (Owner of ) and the. However, from July 19, 2016, SmackDown again started airing in Canada simultaneously with the United States, following SmackDown's move to a live Tuesday night broadcast. Asia-Pacific and Africa SmackDown airs live in Australia on and Friday nights on as a one-hour version. SmackDown airs in on. SmackDown airs live in and exclusive in, and on and on.
SmackDown airs in on and Astro Supersport3, and on Melita Sports 1. The series airs live in on and Friday nights on as a one-hour version. The series airs in the on as a one-hour version and on. The series airs live in on Starhub's HubSports 2, on, and on. SmackDown airs in the on, and on. It also airs on FM1 (Previously Iran FM-TV) in. Europe The series airs live in the United Kingdom and the on and, with replay shows airing on Sky Sports Arena.
The series airs in on and in on. SmackDown Live airs in every Thursday at 10:00pm on. In the full two hours episode airs on on Wednesdays at 7:00pm and a one-hour version airs on SportTV+ on Saturday mornings at 11:00am.
SmackDown Live airs on in the. In Latin America SmackDown airs live on in and across. Online streaming On May 22, 2009, and WWE agreed to air full episodes of SmackDown to be available for viewing the day following its original airing. On September 24, 2012, Hulu signed a multi-year deal with WWE to stream all of the company's TV shows and some of its web series, which includes SmackDown. Full episodes of SmackDown are available for viewing the following day of its original airing. All previous episodes of SmackDown are available on the, where recent episodes are available for on-demand viewing 30 days after the original air date.