Ranking Every WWE SmackDown Stage From Worst To Best
5. Pilot Stage
![Smackdown fist](https://whatculture-create-cms.s3.amazonaws.com/media/2018/10/ada2818b6fbc4a43-600x338.png)
WWE may have returned to network television with the debut of SmackDown in September 1999, but, like most TV shows, it needed a pilot episode to make that happen. So, technically, the first episode of that the company produced took place back in April of that year.
As there was a chance that it wouldn't receive a full-season pick-up, it made sense that WWE didn't build a set for it quite yet. Thus, the pilot episode took place in an unbranded arena that featured a huge TitanTron screen surrounded by a frame of metal rungs. The screen towered over a narrow entrance area that sported the Attitude Era's WWF logo.
Given that it was practically just the era's Raw stage (without all the Raw logos) it was still a cool design, but on a visual note at least, it didn't exactly help set SmackDown apart.