10 Things You Learn Watching WWE TV After 9 Months Away
5. Being Live Has Had Very Little Effect On Smackdown
For the longest time, Smackdown was a wild basket case of a programme. With the exception of a brief, shining moment in the early 2000s, its ‘B' status has been painfully transparent. With the brand split and a move to a live Tuesday night slot, it seems that WWE is finally trying to pull Smackdown out of the perennial doldrums. The split roster is crucially important to making Smackdown decent, of course. But, we’ve always been told that it was Raw’s live nature that made it truly stand out from its little brother. So, has going live made it more exciting?
Well, not exactly. Now there are just more mistakes.
It could probably make a difference if the product felt in any way spontaneous. But, it doesn't. For years, WWE has been producing storylines based around authority figures making matches on the fly. It's a ridiculous strategy because what it implies, narratively, is that everyone is turning up to work to hang out, and maybe end up in a match if the authority figure of the week feels like it. Aside from this nitpicky, narrative idiocy, though, it’s simply been so played out over the past twenty years, it’s now meaningless.
Because the scripted spontaneity is so transparent and tedious, it means that it’s hard to feel that anything can truly happen on any WWE show – which is kind of the point of live television. The run sheet of Smackdown is clearly micromanaged to the nth degree, so being live at this stage really is meaningless. Hopefully, they stick with it, since being live is obviously something that makes Vince McMahon take the show more seriously. But why can’t they use the live nature of the broadcast to make not just Smackdown, but all programming legitimately exciting and unpredictable?