10 Things You Learn As A WWE Creative Writer
2. There's A Reason SmackDown Isn't Live.
In 2007, RAW was shot live on Monday nights. It was the flagship show and, for the most part, touted the top talent in the company. SmackDown’s top talent consisted of more kid-friendly gimmicks and veterans who were being utilized to develop lower level wrestlers.
SmackDown was taped on Tuesdays, edited, and aired on Fridays. From what I observed, it was a good call to not have SmackDown go directly to the viewing audience. For one, some of the more high-flying talent were on the SmackDown roster. Even top guys like Rey Mysterio didn’t always look as smooth live as he did on edited TV. For this reason, many of these matches were “cleaned up” in post-production to make the televised product look as polished as possible.
Once, there was a match so…let’s say unpolished, that it was just eliminated from the show. It was Chavo Guerrero vs. Jimmy Wang Yang. Both very talented, high risk performers. For whatever reason, the choreography just wasn’t working that night. The crowd were quickly turning on them, and I was fortunate enough to be out on the floor to see the match. As I watched the bout, I tried to figure out how the editors were going to string together a tight show out of this display. As it came to be, they couldn’t figure it out either and cut it completely.