The Goodness 03.28.07: Is Friday Night Killing SmackDown?
Posted by on 03.28.2007
The real main event at WrestleMania 23 is John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels. Why? Because more people watch Raw. Has the move to Friday night rendered SmackDown unable to compete?
I usually don't print e-mails I get from my columns, I think they're mostly personal feedback, but I had to share this little anecdote from a reader who agreed with my assertion that Bobby Lashley might just be the next big thing the WWE has been waiting for to break on through to the mainstream.
Good article on Lashley. He really is close to breaking through, and I had no idea until just several days ago. My father is a substitute teacher at one of the local elementary schools, and his second grade class was in the computer lab working on an assignment. The assignment was to use a search engine to find ten facts about an athlete that's inspiring to them. A lot picked obvious stars like Albert Pujols, LeBron James, or Tiger Woods. What shocked me was that several chose Bobby Lashley. Not only that, but Lashley was the only wrestler that anyone chose. No Austin, no Hogan, no Rock, just Lashley. Maybe he really is, finally, the "Next Big Thing." Just thought that was interesting.
Chris
I applaud the WWE for going all out with Lashley leading up to WrestleMania. Sure, there are some that are going to say he doesn't deserve it, he hasn't paid his dues or that he's not good enough in the ring. Time will tell if any of those points are valid. Right now, the WWE has a unique opportunity because of Donald Trump to thrust someone into the spotlight. I'm glad they've given Lashley the mega-push to take advantage of that as to actually create a new star. Now it's up to Lashley to deliver at WrestleMania.
The Goodness 03.28.07: Is Friday Night Killing SmackDown?
As a child, Friday night was my absolute favorite for watching television. No, it wasn't because I loved Urkel or thought Step by Step was the greatest show I had ever seen. In fact, TGIF on ABC didn't even exist for me in the early 1990's when I was a youngster. Why? Because I had wrestling. A local station in Connecticut (I forget which now) ran two hours of syndicated WWF television back to back, first the Wrestling Challenge followed by the Wrestling Spotlight. From the age of 10 until the age I started hanging out with friends on Friday nights, I was plastered on that couch each week and ready to eat up whatever the WWF threw at me. Whether it was a two-hour parade of crap or the ultra-rare title change, I was set.
I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago, an absolute bear of a winter storm rocked Connecticut the night before St. Patrick's Day and I was stuck at home. I can't even tell you the last time I sat home on a Friday night, I'm only home if I'm sick and, well, that's about it. How many people between the ages of, say, 16 and 24 stay in on a Friday night? It doesn't have to be out to a bar, it could be on a date, it could be to a movie, it could just be to hang at a friend's place, but the common denominator is that very few people of that age are watching television of any sort, save for the sports on in the background at a bar. That's reality.
Of course, SmackDown is now a Friday fixture and it does pretty well for its timeslot. But I believe the timeslot is killing the show, killing the performers on the show and is one of the reasons the brand extension has disintegrated to the point it exists in name only.
I bring this up because there has been some discussion amongst wrestling fans about which match goes on last, which match is indeed the Main Event of WrestleMania 23. I find the debate funny because, as you can tell by the reactions on Raw, at pay-per-views and such, that the Main Event is Cena/Michaels. It's not because it's a better feud, it's not because they're better characters (though both might be true), it's because more people see them. More people know about the Cena/Michaels feud. More people are watching television on Monday nights, more people are flipping channels then, more people associate Monday night with pro wrestling and they have since the Monday Night Wars started a dozen years ago.
The problem is not helped in any way, shape or form by the WWE clearly making Raw its flagship show. Donald Trump didn't show up on SmackDown. SmackDown doesn't have Snoop Dogg and others doing commercials as part of an ad campaign like Raw does. The big matches are advertised on Raw. Because of this, the Raw shows feel bigger. That means the mid-card talent on Raw is more over, more known and gets more exposure.
As I watch a portion of SmackDown as I was stuck home with nowhere to go, what struck me was the team of London & Kendrick. Sure, I've heard of them. I've seen both of them wrestle and seen them as a tag team before SmackDown moved to Fridays. But I hadn't seen them in so long. It was liking watching two wrestlers I had never seen before. Ditto for MVP, a wrestler who has been getting praise around the Internet but who I haven't seen wrestle an important match. And I won't until WrestleMania and he most likely takes the U.S. Title from Chris Benoit. There is nothing against any of these three wrestlers and no real reason why I don't care about them right now other than I don't see them. I'm not rearranging my Friday nights to watch SmackDown.
Now, maybe this situation will be helped in the coming years as technology like DVR becomes more prevalent and more people record shows. Right now, though, SmackDown is lost in a vacuum that many of the core WWE audience can't watch. If the WWE was smart and wanted to make the Friday night timeslot work, they should go old-school, turn back the clocks and redo the 1980's with the SmackDown cast and make it a family show. Putting on a "cutting edge" show for teenagers and college kids doesn't work when most of those teenagers and college kids have far more important things to be doing on a Friday night.
I say that Friday night is killing SmackDown because the show has clearly become the WWE's B-show. There was always the feeling that Raw was the more important show but, on Thursday night, SmackDown was watchable. There was a time when Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle were tearing up SmackDown, at the same time Triple H and Kevin Nash were bringing down Raw, that SmackDown was the flagship for the WWE. Brock Lesnar demolished Hulk Hogan on SmackDown. The SmackDown Six….well, that's pretty self-explanatory.
As we head into WrestleMania, the focus from the WWE point of view has been on Raw and rightly so. They're not dummies, they see the ratings and they know more people are watching Raw. They promoted the heck out of WrestleMania on Raw to the point that I agree with J.D. Dunn's assertion that the show will do 1 million buys domestically. It's been built beautifully. However, the build for every match, with the exception of MVP/Benoit, has taken place almost exclusively on Raw. Even Batista/Undertaker had another key subplot in its feud Monday night. Heck, SmackDown's announcer came to Raw to berate Shawn Michaels.
So what happens after WrestleMania? Where does SmackDown go from here? Does SmackDown have the audience to allow its stars like MVP and Mr. Kennedy to continue to get over to the point all wrestling fans recognize them as main eventers? Or will the show continue to be a training ground for stars to take their act to Raw? Even Lashley, who technically was moved to ECW, has constantly been on Raw and there's no doubt that face time has helped him get over in the past month. It wouldn't have happened on SmackDown.
What does the WWE do with SmackDown? Do they turn it into a family show to fully attract a new audience? And by all indications, there are more kids in the SmackDown audience than Raw's, based on anecdotal and personal evidence. (I walked by the Hartford Civic Center before a SmackDown taping, lots o' kids.) Or do they continue what they're doing, allow SmackDown superstars to move consistently to Raw? I doubt SmackDown will ever be cancelled because it does good ratings for a Friday…but it's still not Raw. It has become the WWE's Junior Varsity squad, through no fault of its own.
Check out my site TooMuchSports.com for more of 'WrestleMania in Five' and lots of NCAA tournament talk.
