Towards the end of 2002, WWE realised that they had to do something different with the Smackdown brand - since the 'Brand Extension' had started earlier in the year, the show had become little more than a poor man's version of Raw, which in itself wasn't exactly setting the world on fire. Enter Paul Heyman, the man who had shown a ton of creativity when running the original Extreme Championship Wrestling, but didn't quite have the business acumen to ensure that ECW could do anything other than continually attempt to punch above its weight. In fairness, Heyman did tremendous things with ECW, and fans wondered what he could do with an actual budget behind him. Free from the day-to-day stress of running a company, Heyman was a riot as chief booker on Smackdown. The infamous 'Smackdown Six' - Rey Mysterio, Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit - was a group of performers Paul focused on, and it paid off. The result was some of the best wrestling television WWE had produced in years.
