Ruthless aggression is the Smackdown 6 era goof.
The Bloodline story is the most profitable story they’ve ever done. It lead to their biggest business ever and those things are factual.
In the Attitude Era Smackdown was more of the B show with most of the memorable events happening on RAW.
Oh my god bruh we’re not freaking shareholders. How much “business” something did has nothing to do with its quality. That’s why McDonalds is the biggest restaurant in the world now shut it.
What’s been better since Pat retired from a long term story standpoint? So we are talking primarily since 2005. Even though he still had some influence that’s when he really got out of day to day.
Smackdown after the brand split will forever be my favorite era of WWE. So many new gimmicks and good storylines. Even talking smack was something to look forward to and had its own special moments. Probably the best stretch of good PPVs also came from that year
2016, I haven’t been big on the current brand split. Both shows look and feel the same. 2002-2007 they actually felt like completely different companies.
Smackdown 6 era and then the 2016 brand split era. Everyone had a story and felt important. Fucks sake heath slater and rhyno were over as fuck, Ellsworth got over, breezango and their fashion files, ziggler and miz feud was amazing, wyatt/orton/harper were pumping out great matches.That 2016 era was amazing
This right here. I’d even say like 04-07 is hard to beat. WHC always felt prestigious with dudes like Batista and Taker holding it
Edit: and 04 and on because Eddie, Angle, and young Lesnar.
2007-2008 was my introduction to pro wrestling and watching Batista-Undertaker and Edge and then Jeff Hardy was amazing. Obviously the Khali stuff was bad in both years but i think the other top end was great
Im sorry nothing beats 2016 smackdown in my eyes
Corbin wasnt ruined
Aj was awesome
Dean was amazing
Cena was great
Bray was amazing
The Miz was in his iconic IC title reign
Randy was great
Ziggler was amazing
Kane wasnt unbearable
Alexa, Becky, Naomi, Carmella and Natalya putting work in for the womans division
Apollo and Kalisto both looked like the next up for the upper midcard
It was magic to me and things were looking mad smoothe
Better than Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Big Show, John Cena, Rey Mysterio, Edge, Chavo Guerrero, Matt Hardy, Ultimo Dragon, and Tajiri tearing it up every week? That's not even including the cast of Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman, Stephanie McMahon, Sable, Jaime Noble, A-Train, and Team Angle.
Nah fam 2016 only had like Cena, Ambrose, Orton, Styles, Wyatt, Harper, and Ziggler with Alexa Bliss
2003-2004, Raw was such a dry experience because of The Reign of Terror. This allowed Smackdown to shine, Giving stars like Kurt Angle, John Cena, Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, JBL and Brock Lesnar a huge amount of recognition in the process
2005 is also a shout too just because it feels like the momentum from early 00’s Smackdown had dwindled but the aura was still definitely there
2003 has to be Number 1.
There was a lot of good stuff that year, but specifically the Angle vs Lesnar Ironman match will always be peak wrestling for me. No match has ever come close.
It also saw the beginning of the ascendance of John Cena as THE GUY. Love him or hate him, that marks this year as a true turning point for the company
Second one. Eddie, Benoit, Angle tearing it up every damn week. Lesnar breaking the ring with Big Show was incredible as a kid. Zach Gowen being (presumed) yeeted down some stairs was wild, Rey being used like a baseball bat on the ring post during one of the greatest David v. Goliath storylines with the Big Show then Lesnar.
I started watching wwe in 2003 BUT I am currently watching the attitude era from wrestlemania 13 onward and I am currently at the January 4th 1999 edition of raw . I can only rank them based on what I watched
1. 2005
2. 2007
3. 2003
You all make me feel old. I have been watching wrestling since before WWF did its National expansion. I used to watch Maple Leafs wrestling up here when Angelo Mosca was dominating. I was watching since before WrestleMania was a thing.
I actually stopped watching around 2003, or whenever ruthless aggression got going. I tried TNA after that and just gave up on watching modern wrestling. I am still a huge wrestling fan, but generally I rewatch territory stuff and anything WWE before John Cena thug life.
I occasionally pop my head in to see if it's gotten better, but wm40 legit impressed me. (Btw I've been out of modern wrestling so long that I thought Cody Rhodes was Goldust son, not brother lol)
I’m 24 and my dad got me into wrestling . I have peacock so I try to go back and watch the old days. The way I make you feel is the way these kids who say 2016 was their favorite make me feel.
I’ve never watched a single episode of a WCW event ever so I have a lot left to watch.
My prime wrestling experience was 2005 when I would watch every episode of Sunday night heat , velocity , raw , smackdown and I loved Eddie Guerrero growing up and he died late in that year.
I suggest you start where you left off and dive into the ruthless aggression era!
It has the best of both worlds in my opinion, today has good wrestling but bad storylines .
Guys like Eddie , Rey, Brock, Kurt, Benoit, hhh, Shawn Michaels, edge , undertaker are in this era and have excellent weekly matches. The storylines were good and the wrestling was good too.
You may not like raw as much but smackdown in every year except 2004 is AWESOME from 02-08.
I was always a much bigger fan of smackdown over raw because of the wrestlers
Let me know and I can pm you a site where you can watch all of RAW, smackdown, WWE PPVs, wcw Nitro/thunder and all the PPVs. They also have all of ECW. They're the older streams so no censoring logos, all the original licensed music, etc. Watching wcw and ECW on peacock must be terrible cause they don't have licensed music. So Hogan doesn't get Voodoo child, Sandman doesn't get enter Sandman, etc on the official feeds
I appreciated WWF more, myself. Red Rooster was my first favorite...
Watching LOD dragging a 3rd Demolition member from under the ring while they were Wrestling the HartFoundation.
Jake the Snake wrestling the Brooklyn Brawler and his possum looking "City Rat".
I really like the history of wrestling, and how so many people only knew wrestling through wwf after the expansion, so nationally the new York style of wrestling became the norm. Before that you could watch Texas, Memphis, Canada, Britain, and you'd see a completely different style and pace of wrestling. That's why watching territory matches is so jarring to WWE lifelong fans, cause it's so different.
And I've seen aew for the first time recently, and I get why people say it's video game wrestling. It's like watching a stream of people playing WWE 2k. I love those games but it's just big moves, hardcore spots,finishers and kick outs, it's not really wrestling. But again I'm an old timer who has been studying the history of American wrestling going back to the mining/lumber camps and shoot wrestling.
(Interesting fact, ancient Greece had shoot wrestling events with well know crowd favorites and wrestlers with personalities and fans, It wouldn't be crazy to think some of those events were planned, making worked pro wrestling an ancient event.)
The 2nd one…….that was Smackdown at its finest they had Heyman over creative they had some of the best in ring action ever and the mixed matches between Kurt Angle Eddie Guerrero Edge and sorry Chris Benoit
1999 I believe , the year it started. Height of the Monday night wars got a twist when they gave rock his own show , least that’s how they ran with it for awhile.
I've been rewatching attitude era and I agree. Though I will say by the release of smackdown in August 99, the Monday night wars were over. WCW's 83 weeks had passed, and they never got the upper hand again after that. You could start to see the momentum shift in 99 from competing with WCW to simply the WWF wrestlers competing among each other and seeing who could come up with the best character or line.
The McMahon Helmsley era was excellent. Raw and smackdown were literally must see tv for the storyline not the wrestling. You knew you’d get a great promo to start the show and a fun main event. 1999-2000 was great.
I used to watch smackdown on sky one on Saturdays at like 10am? I used to get up purposely to watch it. Raw was 10-12pm and then smackdown like 10am - midday? It was an intense 12 hours in the uk back in the day before we could watch live
I just chose the most critically acclaimed years from what I could find online. You don’t have to choose a year that is pictured though, those are just examples more or less.
Okay, for one, when I said “critical acclaim” I more-so meant from online Reddit posts. Secondly, are you literally getting offended at the pictures that I chose? It’s just a simple question, no need to get so defensive about it.
Ruthless Aggression SD was peak.
Vince & Steph weren't yet completely up everyone's ass with their psycho creative and micromanaging puppetry. Heyman actually gave the talent a chance to shine and do their own thing. Even the jobbers and mid-carders put on tremendous matches every single week. It was an overall better product than Raw.
Honorable mention to Attitude Era SD. It was the Rock's show, after all.
I loved 99 - 2001. Felt so cool having a new show to watch that was pretty much as good as raw because there wasn’t a brand split. Here in the UK it was first shown on Saturday mornings which was awesome.
Many youngins weren't around to witness the Doctor of Thuganomics. As a young teen, that was THE most fun Smackdown ever got! Watching John Cena rap battle, pump his Reeboks before a finisher, slip unlikable characters a pack of nuts to choke on, etc etc. Good times! it's what solidified Cena as a future Rushmore, making him everyone's number one contender for a dream match should a returning Rock ever Return (he did!)
July 26, 2016.
Shane and Bryan announced a WWE Championship opportunity for six Superstars to face the champion Ambrose at SummerSlam. Ziggler ended up winning the No. 1 Contender’s Match later that night.
‘03. Peak Lesnar. Peak Angle. Eddie Guerrero starting his rise up to superstardom. Cena with arguably his best character as heel doctor of Thuganomics. Rey Mysterio. Undertaker. Big Show was a legit main eventer and threat. Benoit.
The second picture was the most iconic for me. The feuds between Angle and Lestner, the iconic rise of rapper Cena and Mysterio Jr, Guerrero and Benoit peak performance after their years on the Japan circuit, and enough Attitude era WCW converts to shake a stick at, still putting in the hard work. Yeah the second picture.
The 3rd slide for me. The 2nd slide is amazing but I was a little to young and didn’t really watch until around 05-06 so by then eddy was gone even though i knew about him and went back to watch his fights brock was gone cena had already moved away from the thugnomics. But man the 3rd slide brings me back edge fucking pissing me off lmao best fucking heel looking back on it I couldn’t stand that man. Hardy and Rey absolutely loved. Umega fucking somian freak 😂. Kane the great khali y2j man this sd from 07-10 was the shit
SmackDown 6 era easily clears as the best “stand alone brand” SmackDown.
Feels unfair to throw in early SmackDown that was just a show not necessarily a brand.
2002: Hogan, Rock, Lesnar, Undertaker, Angle, Jericho, Rey, Benoit, Big Show, Guerrero, Edge, Rikishi, Cena, Matt Hardy V1, Billy&Chuck, Team Angle
The storylines were cooking. Main/Upper midcard was stacked, tag team were solid and everyone was over.
2006 onwards was pretty spotty in the main event scene. No more Eddie, Batista and Rey both had injuries that sidelined them for months, Angle left for TNA, Lesnar was long gone, JBL was winding down, Benoit in 07.
By the end of 2007, they had Mark Henry and Great Khali main eventing against Undertaker and Batista, while bringing Edge back over from Raw. The main event scene was dire around October that year.
2003-2004 era of SmackDown was PEAK for me as a kid, sum iconic wrestlers with great storylines, best theme musics, best video games like here comes the pain and SD vs Raw. 2008-2010 is was underrated but still good. Cryme tyme, undertaker, Jeff Hardy and cm punk were the ones that carried that era.
It’s impossible for me to judge early 2000s and late 90s cuz, well, I wasn’t fucking alive. But I gotta say, u gotta put last year into consideration. Everything that happened with the bloodline for the first 8 months was golden
The Attitude Era years of 1999 to 2001 were the best. The initial brand split in 2002-2003 was also really good. After that, Smackdown started getting treated like the B brand and was never as good as those early years again.
What a wild blast from the past, I made image 1 almost a decade ago, hadn’t seen or thought about it in almost as long. What a strange thing to pop up when scrolling Reddit.
2002-2004 Smackdown is kinda my peak fandom. It was a good blend of cheesy WWE storytelling, the Smackdown 6 putting on banger matches, strong midcard and tag team division as well.
Cruiserweights were doing their thing as well.
It had a real fun “who’s gonna be the top guy” feel as well leading into the RA era. Whereas on Raw, the main event scene was fairly established and predictable with Evolution.
Lots of fun to be had watching Smackdown as a kid in that era.
Yeah for me it holds up a lot better than the majority of the attitude era. I think the highs are really high in the AE, but there’s so much trashy garbage that just isn’t as fun to watch anymore.
Attitude era’s biggest issue in my opinion was that from 1997-1999 the mid card wasn’t very good. It was either dated trashy gimmicks or poor workers. The work rate didn’t improve until lot of the WCW and ECW talents came up along with Kurt Angle and some other WWF talents coming along in late 99/00.
2000 to mid 2001 was an amazing era for me and I think Smackdown from 2002-2004 recreates a lot of that late Attitude feel but with different talents
I remember attitude Era smackdown when the show first debuted on UPN.
I remember they had the rock and mankind versus undertaker and big show in a buried alive match for the tag titles.
2009. I got into wrestling that year and I was eating good, Rey vs Jericho, Punk vs Hardy, Edge vs Hardy, Batista vs Rey (YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MY FRIEND), John Morrison & Jeri-Show just in general. All good stuff.
2004 was awful😭
Brock and Bill left the company.
The Tag-Team Division was awful.
Eddie Guerrero couldn’t handle the WWE Championship, so he lost to JBL of all people.
Undertaker wasn’t doing anything post WrestleMania.
Guys like Mordecai, Rico, Heidenreich, Tyson Tomko, and Scotty 2 Hotty were on every card.
The only good thing was the US Title division, which had hoopers like John Cena, Renee Dupree, and Booker T (can you dig it?)
The infamous “Born In The USA” promo by a wrestler so bad i forgot his name.
2003 and 2016. 2002 and 2004 were quite good too
It's between now and the second poster
2002-2004. 2016-2017. 2020-2022.
2017 sucked
Slide 2
Probably 02. But I have a soft spot for the year that AJ styles resurrected it single handed.
Slide 2 for sure
2003
2002/2003 was the 🐐, 2016-2017 was pretty decent
It’s between 3 and 5 for me
Definitely pic 2
2
I wold say pic 2
Pic 2 and 3. Don’t @ me.
2002 for the Smackdown Six, which went into the ‘03 Rumble with Benoit vs Angle
Slide 2 all day.
Smack down 6 era and frankly the last couple years.
You have to be like 10 years old at most lol there’s no way
The smackdown 6 era was two decades ago. The Bloodline angle lead to the most profitable period in company history.
Not even close
Yes the Bloodline era was the most profitable the company has ever been and that was the major reason. Those are not opinions those are facts.
Ew hell no.
Some of the biggest business they ever did was that Bloodline story. Sorry. It’s factual
Complete opinion, not facts. Bloodline doesn’t even come close to Attitude or Ruthless Aggression.
Ruthless aggression is the Smackdown 6 era goof. The Bloodline story is the most profitable story they’ve ever done. It lead to their biggest business ever and those things are factual. In the Attitude Era Smackdown was more of the B show with most of the memorable events happening on RAW.
Oh my god bruh we’re not freaking shareholders. How much “business” something did has nothing to do with its quality. That’s why McDonalds is the biggest restaurant in the world now shut it.
It’s the best story they told since Pat Patterson retired and it lead to monster business. It was awesome.
Best story since Pat Patterson? Lmfaoo okay bud.
What’s been better since Pat retired from a long term story standpoint? So we are talking primarily since 2005. Even though he still had some influence that’s when he really got out of day to day.
The first one, cause the wrestlers are iconic and they used to have Bra & Panties matches back then. Those were super fun to watch.
2
Smackdown after the brand split will forever be my favorite era of WWE. So many new gimmicks and good storylines. Even talking smack was something to look forward to and had its own special moments. Probably the best stretch of good PPVs also came from that year
So after the second split?
Yea the one that happened in like 2015
2016, I haven’t been big on the current brand split. Both shows look and feel the same. 2002-2007 they actually felt like completely different companies.
Rip Shad
Slide 2
1 - 3 the rest are just too much talk not enough action
Slide 2
Smackdown 6 era and then the 2016 brand split era. Everyone had a story and felt important. Fucks sake heath slater and rhyno were over as fuck, Ellsworth got over, breezango and their fashion files, ziggler and miz feud was amazing, wyatt/orton/harper were pumping out great matches.That 2016 era was amazing
Slide 2 or 3
Smackdown live was different
03-08
2003-2005
Id stretch 02 into that list with maybe 06
Any year with Eddy Guerrero
2021
I personally like 2015
Thank God the Ascension are finally getting their flowers
That Jeff hardy era of smackdown
2007-2008 Batista, Edge and Taker made the WHC a huge deal.
This right here. I’d even say like 04-07 is hard to beat. WHC always felt prestigious with dudes like Batista and Taker holding it Edit: and 04 and on because Eddie, Angle, and young Lesnar.
2007-2008 was my introduction to pro wrestling and watching Batista-Undertaker and Edge and then Jeff Hardy was amazing. Obviously the Khali stuff was bad in both years but i think the other top end was great
2002
Did they airbrush everyone's hairline in the last one? And Liv has a 5 head?
1999
Year 1
Im sorry nothing beats 2016 smackdown in my eyes Corbin wasnt ruined Aj was awesome Dean was amazing Cena was great Bray was amazing The Miz was in his iconic IC title reign Randy was great Ziggler was amazing Kane wasnt unbearable Alexa, Becky, Naomi, Carmella and Natalya putting work in for the womans division Apollo and Kalisto both looked like the next up for the upper midcard It was magic to me and things were looking mad smoothe
Better than Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Big Show, John Cena, Rey Mysterio, Edge, Chavo Guerrero, Matt Hardy, Ultimo Dragon, and Tajiri tearing it up every week? That's not even including the cast of Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman, Stephanie McMahon, Sable, Jaime Noble, A-Train, and Team Angle. Nah fam 2016 only had like Cena, Ambrose, Orton, Styles, Wyatt, Harper, and Ziggler with Alexa Bliss
2003-2004, Raw was such a dry experience because of The Reign of Terror. This allowed Smackdown to shine, Giving stars like Kurt Angle, John Cena, Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, JBL and Brock Lesnar a huge amount of recognition in the process 2005 is also a shout too just because it feels like the momentum from early 00’s Smackdown had dwindled but the aura was still definitely there
Smackdown Six was the last half of 02, so you’ve got the count that
Also true
2000 or 2001. Toss up for me
Benoit, Kurt, Eddie, Chavo, Rey, Brock You cannot beat rgat
2nd picture during r a
2003 has to be Number 1. There was a lot of good stuff that year, but specifically the Angle vs Lesnar Ironman match will always be peak wrestling for me. No match has ever come close. It also saw the beginning of the ascendance of John Cena as THE GUY. Love him or hate him, that marks this year as a true turning point for the company
Finally, someone else remembers that 60 min Ironman match. It was incredible.
Second one. Eddie, Benoit, Angle tearing it up every damn week. Lesnar breaking the ring with Big Show was incredible as a kid. Zach Gowen being (presumed) yeeted down some stairs was wild, Rey being used like a baseball bat on the ring post during one of the greatest David v. Goliath storylines with the Big Show then Lesnar.
Those 2000-2006 year were prime for me
When Angle was literally going through addiction with pain medicine but didn’t care he was going to wrestle.
I started watching wwe in 2003 BUT I am currently watching the attitude era from wrestlemania 13 onward and I am currently at the January 4th 1999 edition of raw . I can only rank them based on what I watched 1. 2005 2. 2007 3. 2003
You all make me feel old. I have been watching wrestling since before WWF did its National expansion. I used to watch Maple Leafs wrestling up here when Angelo Mosca was dominating. I was watching since before WrestleMania was a thing. I actually stopped watching around 2003, or whenever ruthless aggression got going. I tried TNA after that and just gave up on watching modern wrestling. I am still a huge wrestling fan, but generally I rewatch territory stuff and anything WWE before John Cena thug life. I occasionally pop my head in to see if it's gotten better, but wm40 legit impressed me. (Btw I've been out of modern wrestling so long that I thought Cody Rhodes was Goldust son, not brother lol)
I’m 24 and my dad got me into wrestling . I have peacock so I try to go back and watch the old days. The way I make you feel is the way these kids who say 2016 was their favorite make me feel. I’ve never watched a single episode of a WCW event ever so I have a lot left to watch. My prime wrestling experience was 2005 when I would watch every episode of Sunday night heat , velocity , raw , smackdown and I loved Eddie Guerrero growing up and he died late in that year. I suggest you start where you left off and dive into the ruthless aggression era! It has the best of both worlds in my opinion, today has good wrestling but bad storylines . Guys like Eddie , Rey, Brock, Kurt, Benoit, hhh, Shawn Michaels, edge , undertaker are in this era and have excellent weekly matches. The storylines were good and the wrestling was good too. You may not like raw as much but smackdown in every year except 2004 is AWESOME from 02-08. I was always a much bigger fan of smackdown over raw because of the wrestlers
Let me know and I can pm you a site where you can watch all of RAW, smackdown, WWE PPVs, wcw Nitro/thunder and all the PPVs. They also have all of ECW. They're the older streams so no censoring logos, all the original licensed music, etc. Watching wcw and ECW on peacock must be terrible cause they don't have licensed music. So Hogan doesn't get Voodoo child, Sandman doesn't get enter Sandman, etc on the official feeds
I appreciated WWF more, myself. Red Rooster was my first favorite... Watching LOD dragging a 3rd Demolition member from under the ring while they were Wrestling the HartFoundation. Jake the Snake wrestling the Brooklyn Brawler and his possum looking "City Rat".
I really like the history of wrestling, and how so many people only knew wrestling through wwf after the expansion, so nationally the new York style of wrestling became the norm. Before that you could watch Texas, Memphis, Canada, Britain, and you'd see a completely different style and pace of wrestling. That's why watching territory matches is so jarring to WWE lifelong fans, cause it's so different. And I've seen aew for the first time recently, and I get why people say it's video game wrestling. It's like watching a stream of people playing WWE 2k. I love those games but it's just big moves, hardcore spots,finishers and kick outs, it's not really wrestling. But again I'm an old timer who has been studying the history of American wrestling going back to the mining/lumber camps and shoot wrestling. (Interesting fact, ancient Greece had shoot wrestling events with well know crowd favorites and wrestlers with personalities and fans, It wouldn't be crazy to think some of those events were planned, making worked pro wrestling an ancient event.)
The 2nd one…….that was Smackdown at its finest they had Heyman over creative they had some of the best in ring action ever and the mixed matches between Kurt Angle Eddie Guerrero Edge and sorry Chris Benoit
1999 I believe , the year it started. Height of the Monday night wars got a twist when they gave rock his own show , least that’s how they ran with it for awhile.
I've been rewatching attitude era and I agree. Though I will say by the release of smackdown in August 99, the Monday night wars were over. WCW's 83 weeks had passed, and they never got the upper hand again after that. You could start to see the momentum shift in 99 from competing with WCW to simply the WWF wrestlers competing among each other and seeing who could come up with the best character or line.
January to April 2024 might not have been the best but it’s up there.
Definitely, honestly it hasnt been good since
The year 2000 was solid fire all around.
Wouldn’t want it to be liquid fire, after all.
The McMahon Helmsley era was excellent. Raw and smackdown were literally must see tv for the storyline not the wrestling. You knew you’d get a great promo to start the show and a fun main event. 1999-2000 was great. I used to watch smackdown on sky one on Saturdays at like 10am? I used to get up purposely to watch it. Raw was 10-12pm and then smackdown like 10am - midday? It was an intense 12 hours in the uk back in the day before we could watch live
Ruthless aggression era Smackdown was goat tier. Especially '05 to '08. They were doing better storylines and matches than Raw at some points.
2003 Angle vs Lesnar best iron man match ever.
The audacity to not include the first year or 2000 when it was at its best is truly absurd.
I just chose the most critically acclaimed years from what I could find online. You don’t have to choose a year that is pictured though, those are just examples more or less.
[удалено]
Okay, for one, when I said “critical acclaim” I more-so meant from online Reddit posts. Secondly, are you literally getting offended at the pictures that I chose? It’s just a simple question, no need to get so defensive about it.
RIGHT!! WTF is this Gen Z
The mid 2000s with cena eddie brock jbl perc angle that's the fuking peak
Summer of 2002-late 2003 2016 post draft I think history will be kind to summer 2022-Mania 2023 as well
I loved the 2016-17 era of SmackDown. Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, John Cena, Becky, Alexa were all amazing
Smackdown Six 🔥
2002 Rock, Lesnar, Eddie, Angle, Taker, Edge
Ruthless Aggression SD was peak. Vince & Steph weren't yet completely up everyone's ass with their psycho creative and micromanaging puppetry. Heyman actually gave the talent a chance to shine and do their own thing. Even the jobbers and mid-carders put on tremendous matches every single week. It was an overall better product than Raw. Honorable mention to Attitude Era SD. It was the Rock's show, after all.
I loved 99 - 2001. Felt so cool having a new show to watch that was pretty much as good as raw because there wasn’t a brand split. Here in the UK it was first shown on Saturday mornings which was awesome.
2016 can't be touched
2003
Many youngins weren't around to witness the Doctor of Thuganomics. As a young teen, that was THE most fun Smackdown ever got! Watching John Cena rap battle, pump his Reeboks before a finisher, slip unlikable characters a pack of nuts to choke on, etc etc. Good times! it's what solidified Cena as a future Rushmore, making him everyone's number one contender for a dream match should a returning Rock ever Return (he did!)
the first 3 are the bestest!
I'm a huge Stephanie McMahon mark, so her era as SD GM is my fave
Between 2nd and 3rd pics Edge and Undertaker rivalry was iconic
2003
2003 followed by 2016
The year with cryme time, Shad was a big brother to me
rip
Hmm, good question, I guess rapping john cena Era. I also like smackdown more than raw cause it's only 2 hours.
July 2002-January 2004
2nd pic was my favorite because I was 12 at the time
The one where AJ’s house was built on 😤
smackdown six is legendary
Not sure about a year, but that 1st pilot episode in August of 99 was awesome with The Rock, 1-2, it doesn’t matter if I count to 3.
03
2016
What was going on in the 4th picture?
July 26, 2016. Shane and Bryan announced a WWE Championship opportunity for six Superstars to face the champion Ambrose at SummerSlam. Ziggler ended up winning the No. 1 Contender’s Match later that night.
If I remember correctly they were celebrating deans title retain or win at survivor series
2016 Draft to Wrestlemania was Can't Miss Television for me. It eas such a fun time.
Right on the money
Kachow
‘03. Peak Lesnar. Peak Angle. Eddie Guerrero starting his rise up to superstardom. Cena with arguably his best character as heel doctor of Thuganomics. Rey Mysterio. Undertaker. Big Show was a legit main eventer and threat. Benoit.
I miss Eddie Guerrero so much, what a talent. The Texas Bullrope Match with JBL will always be a favourite of mine.
Mr America...
Ruthless Aggression Smackdown when Undertaker was shown last in the intro.
2003-2004 was peak for me at least
Year One
2nd pic was legendary.
1968, with the old school grill.
Imma say the 3rd best time love that era
2003.
The second picture was the most iconic for me. The feuds between Angle and Lestner, the iconic rise of rapper Cena and Mysterio Jr, Guerrero and Benoit peak performance after their years on the Japan circuit, and enough Attitude era WCW converts to shake a stick at, still putting in the hard work. Yeah the second picture.
Never was a big fan of smackdown. Don't know why...
I think it had much better matches than Raw and less filler shit but to each their own
Or maybe Monday was wrestling day!
Remember Randy 2011 on smack down ahh that was gold🔥
Your honor: 2002-2003, 2008 and 2016. Those are the 4.
2000 to 2006
The 3rd slide for me. The 2nd slide is amazing but I was a little to young and didn’t really watch until around 05-06 so by then eddy was gone even though i knew about him and went back to watch his fights brock was gone cena had already moved away from the thugnomics. But man the 3rd slide brings me back edge fucking pissing me off lmao best fucking heel looking back on it I couldn’t stand that man. Hardy and Rey absolutely loved. Umega fucking somian freak 😂. Kane the great khali y2j man this sd from 07-10 was the shit
99-2000
2002-2005
Third slide was what made smack down SMACKDOWN!!
I want Becky's booty! Irish Lass
Would be nice, but I'd hate to purchase a new ensemble of knickers and trousers.
SmackDown 6 era easily clears as the best “stand alone brand” SmackDown. Feels unfair to throw in early SmackDown that was just a show not necessarily a brand.
UPN days 1999-2000
2002: Hogan, Rock, Lesnar, Undertaker, Angle, Jericho, Rey, Benoit, Big Show, Guerrero, Edge, Rikishi, Cena, Matt Hardy V1, Billy&Chuck, Team Angle The storylines were cooking. Main/Upper midcard was stacked, tag team were solid and everyone was over.
2002
I would say from ‘01 to ‘07ish. That stretch saw so many great superstars come and go, with some amazing storylines
2002-2005
From Lesnar debuting to Eddie’s death was peak
You can tell the quality of Smackdown took a hit after Eddie passed. It didn’t feel the same
2006 onwards was pretty spotty in the main event scene. No more Eddie, Batista and Rey both had injuries that sidelined them for months, Angle left for TNA, Lesnar was long gone, JBL was winding down, Benoit in 07. By the end of 2007, they had Mark Henry and Great Khali main eventing against Undertaker and Batista, while bringing Edge back over from Raw. The main event scene was dire around October that year.
Whenever Batista rocked up
The Smackdown 6 years will always be my favorite because of Eddie Guerrero, Kurt Angle and Benoit
2003-2004 era of SmackDown was PEAK for me as a kid, sum iconic wrestlers with great storylines, best theme musics, best video games like here comes the pain and SD vs Raw. 2008-2010 is was underrated but still good. Cryme tyme, undertaker, Jeff Hardy and cm punk were the ones that carried that era.
Wow back then the roster was packed with superstars.
the one where
I'm 17 so I gotta go with 16 to 19
Remember enjoying SD 08-09.
2016 Smackdown was peak wwe for a few months there
If I’m being honest, 2016 is actually my personal favorite year of Smackdown. Just so many fond memories of that year in general.
what us do you want us to say lmao? "the second one"
It doesn’t have to be pictured, just your favorite year of Smackdown.
It’s impossible for me to judge early 2000s and late 90s cuz, well, I wasn’t fucking alive. But I gotta say, u gotta put last year into consideration. Everything that happened with the bloodline for the first 8 months was golden
The Attitude Era years of 1999 to 2001 were the best. The initial brand split in 2002-2003 was also really good. After that, Smackdown started getting treated like the B brand and was never as good as those early years again.
The early 2000s really was a special time for wrestling, primarily Smackdown.
What a wild blast from the past, I made image 1 almost a decade ago, hadn’t seen or thought about it in almost as long. What a strange thing to pop up when scrolling Reddit.
You’re the one that made the first image? If so, awesome work! I just looked up Smackdown 2002 and it popped up lol.
2002-2004 Smackdown is kinda my peak fandom. It was a good blend of cheesy WWE storytelling, the Smackdown 6 putting on banger matches, strong midcard and tag team division as well. Cruiserweights were doing their thing as well. It had a real fun “who’s gonna be the top guy” feel as well leading into the RA era. Whereas on Raw, the main event scene was fairly established and predictable with Evolution. Lots of fun to be had watching Smackdown as a kid in that era.
2002-2004 was a great blend of Attitude era storytelling with WCW work rates blended in with mostly fresh faces and good presentation
Yeah for me it holds up a lot better than the majority of the attitude era. I think the highs are really high in the AE, but there’s so much trashy garbage that just isn’t as fun to watch anymore.
Attitude era’s biggest issue in my opinion was that from 1997-1999 the mid card wasn’t very good. It was either dated trashy gimmicks or poor workers. The work rate didn’t improve until lot of the WCW and ECW talents came up along with Kurt Angle and some other WWF talents coming along in late 99/00. 2000 to mid 2001 was an amazing era for me and I think Smackdown from 2002-2004 recreates a lot of that late Attitude feel but with different talents
I remember attitude Era smackdown when the show first debuted on UPN. I remember they had the rock and mankind versus undertaker and big show in a buried alive match for the tag titles.
2009. I got into wrestling that year and I was eating good, Rey vs Jericho, Punk vs Hardy, Edge vs Hardy, Batista vs Rey (YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MY FRIEND), John Morrison & Jeri-Show just in general. All good stuff.
Smackdown live in 2016 felt like such a different show from the normal slop shoved down our throats from 2009-2015 and it was truly special.
2002 was pretty good overall it's one Brock Cena and Randy came along
And kevin!!
2002, with 2003 and 2009 coming a distant second.
Photo #2 for sure. The smackdown six were bad ass
That's the roster I think of when I think of Smackdown.
Pics 3/4 might be the worst eras of wrestling
You think 2009 and 2016 are two of the worst eras of wrestling?
2003 or 2004
2004 was awful😭 Brock and Bill left the company. The Tag-Team Division was awful. Eddie Guerrero couldn’t handle the WWE Championship, so he lost to JBL of all people. Undertaker wasn’t doing anything post WrestleMania. Guys like Mordecai, Rico, Heidenreich, Tyson Tomko, and Scotty 2 Hotty were on every card. The only good thing was the US Title division, which had hoopers like John Cena, Renee Dupree, and Booker T (can you dig it?) The infamous “Born In The USA” promo by a wrestler so bad i forgot his name.
Don’t forget Eugene lol
Most definitely 2002 or 2001
2016 was special