Smackdown!

2002, a very interesting time for WWE, because WCW was dead, and therefore Vince

McMahon was going to create his own competition, turned Smackdown into its own brand thanks

to the draft.

It's all to where we got ruthless aggression and John Cena pushing that noise, and don't

forget who was booking this show, Paul Heyman, that was mad, the ECW guy helping WWE at

writing level, er, how far we'd come. You also get Batista Randy on and brought Lesnar arriving in big fashion, but there's more. So let's watch it and see what was what. Number 10, the first episode of 2002 has 25 minutes of wrestling. Which bruised the adjud era hadn't totally gone away. It was madness and promos. This was the secret source in the early 2000s, even though Smackdown was a two-hour show at the time, on the 3rd of January, no match in the card actually goes longer than five minutes. Now to be fair, it does include the Rock versus Pooker T, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle versus Edge and RVD, as well as The Undertaker versus the Big Show in a hardcore fight.

So the card looked great, but we were just zooming through them. This goes on for a while until WWE got an influx of new talent, but the balance is way off at the start of 2002. I assume Vince Oman truly believed fans weren't turning in to watch actual wrestling. It is sort of man because it's clear the previous era had already peaked for what WW really needed was something new, different approach, if you will. Instead, Vince sort of hopes it would all double back round eventually. Small spoiler, you did not. Number nine, before the draft, it wasn't great. Maybe it wasn't the worst idea after all. Now, the draft didn't go down until late March, so you do get a lot of Smackdown mixed in with Raw, but honestly, WWE does not seem to care at all. The Rock Cut Angle, The Undertaker and Chris Jericho helped massively, but the undercard was a bunch of nothing. I think WWE just decided it didn't matter because we've got our stars. Otherwise, it was just mad matches like Scotty Too Hottie and Albert versus Billy and Chuck, and fans could

see what was going on there, you can call Albert the hip-hop hippo all you want, but it's not rakishi and we're not going to accept it. Hardcore Holly versus Maven does have a good tough enough angle tied in, but they are given no time so you can't do anything, and also what kind of new fan is going to tune into that? You can just feel that the product does need new stars because it was the same thing over on Raw. The whole thing feels tired, which does make sense.

Again, WW have been flying for a good few years straight. You can't keep that going forever. In 2002,

it crashes hard. Number eight, the OVW debuts. This goes back to the foursome from developmental

that was soon going to take over WWE. Daveista, Brock, Lesle, John Steiner and Randy Keith Orton. You should go and watch Auditorum debut on the main roster other than Big Dave, because for some reason he was cast as Deacon Batista and helped Reverend Devon collect money from fans. You can see a picture of him on the screen right now.

I have no idea what we were thinking. In case you want to see it and get sad, it's on the 9th of May. A couple of weeks prior, Randy does face hardcore Holly on the 25th of April Smackdown. This one is way better. Orton is full of youth and enthusiasm and you can see that he instantly gets it. It's that smoothness man. It's just always been there. Seina came after these two in June, but his arrival is way more famous. The Kurt Angle match is now part of history, even though it's sort of shrouded in controversy. You can see John Cena talking about this on YouTube. He thought it was weird that Kurt tried to blow him up rather than focus on trying to build a new star. He's right, by the way. Doing that is always ridiculous. Fans don't care. By the second half of the year, Brock is running wild and good grief we could all dream of having a debut like that. He is treated as a threat instantly, and he just wrecks proper superstars when the Hardy Boys are eaten alive. They may be dead. It really does show WW can get behind young talent, which they rarely do now. Always feels like there's a hurdle. And I presume some of these ideas were just down on a piece of paper waiting to be executed. That means John Sina could have been the decad. Thankfully, Batista does move on from that character quite quickly and look at it today. All four are legends in their own, right? I mean, that's quite the class. Number seven, Ray Mysterio ruled. It is hilarious that at one point, WWE didn't know if they wanted Ray Mysterio. Goes back to this whole learned of the Giants thing, but screw that. Mysterio had changed the game years prior to

this, and when you go through his career today, he could be the best ever. I mean, what hasn't he done?

He finally gets his foot in the door in 2002, and man, it is just the best and exactly

what the WWE needs.

The mask is back onto after WCW had removed it and go and watch his debut against Charvo

Guerrero.

It's the wake up you need, and Charvo makes sure everybody gets it.

He bumps his ass off because he knew Ray was the dude.

This was the 25th of July as well, so between the new famous and famous old ones, SmackDown actually starts to feel exciting again. And of course, nobody in WW was working like Mysterio in 2002. Let's still RVD's catchphrase, one of a kind. Number six, the Smackdown 6. And the fact that they are still great to watch. Nothing has changed here. if anything, you can see them opening the door for the style of wrestling that would be adapted years down the line. The six relates to Edge, Ray Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero and Charvo Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Kurt Engel, who found themselves on the blue brand and decided that in-ring quality was going to be their focus. They honestly do this week after week two. If the bell rings and they're

on TV, they're going to go nuts. If we are talking about the kind of match you expect to see on free TV too, this was as good as it gets, and really a lot of it is as good as what you see today. It's also how Mysterio proved he was able to stand on the shoulders of giants, and Edge also took advantage of this. By the end, he's totally increased his stock. Angles, Angles,

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