10 Reasons Why The WWE Brand Extension Was Great

1. Smackdown Was More Of A Must See Show

Smackdown has been a WWE taped show usually on Tuesdays since it debuted in 1999. From 1999 to 2005, it aired on Thursdays until the fall of 2005 when it became known as Friday Night Smackdown. It's been on four different networks in the US and it remains on Syfy where it's been since 2010. When the brand extension was announced in March 2002, it made Smackdown seem more important. Instead of coming off as the "B" show, it was something that really mattered. It featured a lot of the big names like Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Edge and others in those early days of the brand extension. The rise of Brock Lesnar happened on Smackdown. John Cena and Randy Orton had their debut matches there while Cena became a rapping star on there. If you were watching that first year then you know that Smackdown was the better show in 2002. Paul Heyman was booking it and it was the perfect mix of exciting stories along with great matches. There were a group of six wrestlers known as the Smackdown Six comprised of Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Rey Mysterio & Edge that had a number of amazing matches with each other. Along with guys like Brock Lesnar and Undertaker in the main event slot, it was a great show. It didn't last long enough because Heyman butted heads with management, but in that first year it was clearly superior. Over the course of the last twelve years there were other periods where Smackdown got really hot too (like 2009 thanks to the Punk/Hardy feud), but for the most part it is still considered to be the show that isn't important as Raw. There are several reasons why Smackdown isn't as important as Raw: It's taped so results are available if you want to read them, Friday night is the worst weeknight for television and WWE makes it a point to only have major happenings on Raw. Fans know all of those things, so Smackdown isn't a priority. When Smackdown was its own entity it mattered a lot more. By being what it is today, it hurts the entire WWE product and that's a shame.