9 Ups & 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (18 Oct)

SmackDown begins life under Bruce Prichard, but ends the episode exactly where it started...

Roman Reigns Daniel Bryan
WWE.com

Another turbulent week in WWE saw SmackDown back at the front of the headlines for a significant change at the top.

Eric Bischoff - for reasons that appear both entirely his fault and entirely not - was let go from his role as Executive Director mere months into assuming the position. 'Easy E' took the hardest fall after the blue brand's ratings tumbled between weeks one and two, but even casual dorks like all of us predicted that slide - the maiden edition of SmackDown on Fox was music festival-sized WWE with all the headline acts knocking out the hits for a crowd trapped entirely in the moment rather than the actual investment still required by the company.

The following week's Draft, by comparison anyway, was a field strewn with empty paper cups in the coldest possible light of day. The hacked-down Bayley Buddies even looked like abandoned tents. It's a lesson WWE haven't learned from similar ratings-grabbing stunts on Monday Night Raw over the last few years, but perhaps they'd rather bounce from panic station to panic station as long as Fox don't touch that billion dollar deal?

Bruce Prichard found himself as the next (last?) wise (maybe?) old (definitely) head to assume this challenging role. But just how did his first night on the job go?

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation over 7 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 30 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz", Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 50,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett