10 Times WWE Tried To Rejuvenate SmackDown But Failed

1. Moving Back To Thursday Nights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzhfT3X6OPk After spending six years on Thursday nights, SmackDown made the move to the "death slot" on Fridays in late 2005. The ratings gradually declined, of course, but not as rapidly as many anticipated. SmackDown fared better on Fridays than one would have expected it to, but it was still quite clear it belonged on Thursdays. Over nine years later, WWE announced SmackDown was returning to Thursdays starting in January 2015 and fans started to speculate that this was the first step in WWE making the blue brand a top priority again. While they definitely did so for their first month or so by holding a Casket match and prominently featuring the likes of John Cena, Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns, it wasn't much longer until it was back to being Raw-lite. There were one or two episodes where there was storyline consistency from Raw, but other than that, the show was a total afterthought. Nothing noteworthy has happened on SmackDown in months, which is why there should be legitimate concern over the move to USA Network next year. It might lead to higher ratings for a time, but if their most recent experiment in switching it to Thursdays was any indication, don't expect to see SmackDown treated differently any time soon.