Are you a time traveler from 2008? If so, thanks so much for coming to the modern day. We appreciate you.

And it really works because today we are going back to Smackdown from that era. And I would like your input in the comments below. As always, though, there's plenty of good and there's plenty of bad we can get into, which is what we're going to do today. Thank you for joining me, my friends. My name is Simon Miller. And that's right, here's 10 Things You Learned Binge Watching every WW Smackdown from 2008.

Number 10th, the 25th of April episode, was a blockbuster. Because there only was it the go-home show for backlash, but I think WW just realized they needed something big. So you get the first ever meeting between Edge and C and Punk, as well as a no-D-Q world world title showdown pitting champion the undertaker versus

batista punk had just won his first mind in the bank briefcase at ressalmania 24 when all of a sudden

he did find himself in a feud with the rated r superstar and oh my gosh fans needed it

me ever since punk davy on ecw everybody wanted to see him climb the ladder now it was flipping

happening in front of your eyes and also smackdown's only two hours two hours. It flies by. Let's also not forget that Taker and Big Dave were having a rematch from WrestleMania 23, which is also a great bout. You should go out of your way to see. You could have main evented any pay-view of that year with these two matches, and it would have been a great old time. We just did it on random airs television. Do not forget as well, this was also a few months before Punk cashed in his case on edge during a June roar. Weirdly, Batista was involved in that too. So it's brand synergy people. They were together. Number nine, Shelton Benjamin should have been pushed and pushed properly. There's this idea today that WW really tried to push Shelton Benjamin but it just didn't

click and that is total baloney my friends. We gave him like 75% of the nudge and we never went

all the way and to this day it annoys me. During the 2008 draft though Benjamin is moved from

ECW to Smackdown and yes I get it he does win the United States Championship at the Great

American Bash in July. He then has a great match with Jeff Hardy on the 15th of August Smackdown that's worth seeing. And of course that ended in DQ, WW trying to protect both guys. And there was interference from an MVP. So all of this was really, really good. The thing is, though, after this point, you're always waiting for WW to Tokes Shelton and throw him to the moon. But they just never did. It also would have helped people in that main event scene because they were desperate to work with new talent who could go, and in terms of being a pure athlete, I still to this day think Shelton Benjamin at minimum is the top three. I don't buy into this idea that his promo ability was holding him back either, because if we had given him more promo time would have got better. And also, so many other individuals did make it to the main event scene. And they were no better than Shelton on the mic. So this was just a drop ball. And if you do need evidence, do you know where you go? Smackdown in 2008, number eight, the Dea's title. So one day somebody decided that we did need a separate women's championship on Smackdown. And as you now know,

what did we call it? Well, we call it the Divas Championship. Now, I do not put the blame on any of the performers that we are about to talk about because they just didn't stand a chance. Because they got no time and let's not forget we learned this later on. These women were also being told, you're not allowed to fight like the men,

you can't even punch each other,

so what the flub were they meant to do?

The brand new Dea's title was introduced

to the Great American Bash Pay-Py-Pew in July, though,

but actually was only defended a handful of times

for the rest of the year,

and once again, that sums it up.

How the hell are you meant to get a new belt over as something important if it never actually turns up on your television? Saying that, though, I am talking to you in 2006 and WWE has kind of done the same with the women's United States belt. So what the hell do I know? And listen, McCall was able to stay at the top of the division for a while and you could tell she did know what she was doing, but really there's nothing of note here, but just to repeat myself, there's also nothing that anybody could have done.

If you're being told to work outside of yourself and not being allowed to put your best foot forward, well then nobody's ever going to see your best.

I think Vincent Mann was just totally stuck in the attitude era way of doing things.

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