With the news that Smackdown! would be moving to the USA Network - and staying on Thursday nights - the show was poised to be in a better position than it had been in years. Adding to the anticipation was the news that WWE had hired MMA and pro wrestling announcer Mauro Ranallo - widely considered the best play-by-play man in the business - to helm the new show. Since Smackdown!'s re-debut, though, it's been a lot of the same. A U.S. Title change on the January 14th episode wasn't enough to mask the fact that the show is more of an extended version of Superstars than a cousin to Raw. That's made particular evident via a most damning statistic - the February 4th Smackdown! was the first episode of the year where the main event did not end in a DQ or countout. What could have been a better show than Raw has remained the same afterthought it's been for years, albeit with a really good commentator. Smackdown's not worth watching, and moreover, the lack of care WWE puts into it is an indictment of the way the company views its television.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
