6. Even WWE Treats Smackdown As Secondary
When Smackdown first debuted in 1999, it replaced Sunday Night Heat as the then-WWF's secondary program. Raw was still the flagship, but Smackdown offered another crucial slice of product for fans. The main problem with the show nowadays is that it doesn't really have much purpose, and even WWE themselves have picked up on that fact. In '99, the wrestling world was very different. The WWF was a red hot product in general, and there was a demand for more content. In 2015, can the same really be said? Given that Monday Night Raw is 3 hours long, and there are countless hours on the WWE Network available, where's the real need for Smackdown on the line up? Far too often, Smackdown is little more than a Raw rerun. Even when the show has changed channels and WWE have promised to freshen it up, it still fits into that mould eventually. How can WWE management expect fans to be enthused about a program they treat with such passive interest? There's no real need for all but the most hardcore of fans to tune into Smackdown.