How did you follow Smackdown before it went live in 2016?

[The Rick Jericho]

I have to say, going live definitely made this show a lot better for me. When it was pre-recorded, I use to skim the results and just see if the show was even worth it to watch.

How did everyone else view Smackdown before the Live era?

[Deleted]

Pretty much always liked it more than Raw until about 2014. Then the product got so bad I didn't watch WWE at all except PPVs until the new brand split era you're talking about.

[ayumidah]

avoided spoilers as much as I could and watched it when it aired.

[A Little Doo Doo]

From 2011 until the 2016 draft, I usually just read the spoilers here and rarely watched.

[Cvslfc123]

I used to watch it on Saturday mornings on Sky One here in the UK. After it moved to Sky Sports in 2005 I'd watch it on Saturday nights when it aired.

When I stopped watching I'd read the spoilers on Wrestling Headlines back when it was Lords of Pain.

[Lizuka #BLM]

I generally just looked at spoilers. Nowadays most of the time I don't even bother to check the results.

[chronocross]

I'd say from 2001-2016, I read the Smackdown spoilers every week.

[Hypnosis]

I did watch, but the live threads had a depressingly low amount of activity in it, I guess due to matches getting repeated on Raw the following week, and some of the shows being just average at best according to the spoilers.

It was basically like reading a live blog when Smackdown was airing before 2016.

[tirtefaa]

UPN for some reason wasn't a network that my cable service provided, so most of the time I had to settle for simply not watching it. However, my NBC station would occasionally reshow it on Sundays around 11 pm, meaning I had to stay up late to watch it.

This was a real pain during the early brand split, since almost every one of the wrestlers I liked ended up on Smackdown. Raw was incredibly bland when it was just Undertaker, Kane, the nWo, RVD and Big Show.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I just read spoilers. Smackdown was an absolute chore to watch during that time, often just doing rematches from Raw but with less meaning, so you got sick of everything so much sooner.

[Ozman]

Stopped watching Smackdown around 2012. Stated watching again in 2016 when Smackdown went live. Since 2019, Smackdown has been the “A” show since going to Fox.

[fw91]

I made a thread a couple years ago about Smackdown in between the two brand splits (2012-2016)

officialfan.proboards.com/thread/612788/smackdown-brand-splits-2012-2016


It felt very non-existant. It was a RAW recap with matches of no storyline advancement, and RAW never referenced what happened on Smackdown during that time.