So 2007, W.W.E. kind of feels like a lie to me. I know it happened because life in life,

but in terms of memories, I don't have many. This could, of course, be due to the worst tragedy

in wrestling history with the unreal news of Chris Benoit and his family, and yeah, I'll tell you

for free, I stopped watching wrestling for a while, I just needed a break. It did trigger a very

distinct shift for WWE, as you will

see today, because when you do watch all of SmackDown in 2007, well, lot changes. So we've

been watched it. I am Salamiller. Let's go. Number nine, the first show of the year was nuts.

Second of January, 2007, Smackdown kicked back into gear, and it was bizarre. This was mostly as the roster was desperate for new faces, so when General Manager Teddy Long arranged a beat the clock challenge to crown a new number one contender for the WWE title, well, there was some madpicks. It was all to face Batista at the Royal Rumble, so it was quite the opportunity, and this was the lineup. Brian Kendrick versus Paul London, Kane versus Charvo Guerrero, King Buccar versus Gregory Helms, Jimmy Wang Yang versus de Tancor, and Mr. Kennedy versus Chris Benoit. I am talking about that to Tanker too, the one from back in the day. We didn't even get a finishing that much either, given the rules, it went to a time limit draw.

As you can guess, too, only a few people actually had the fans' belief they could win, and of course we only did Kendrick v London because they were friends, although they did both go crazy. They actually made the whole thing more entertaining, and Kennedy got the best time too, but the sad thing was, just as he was celebrating, Teddy Long came out and said, We're going to do more of these matches next week.

That kind of felt unfair. Ashley also beat Gillian in the women's division, and yeah, they weren't allowed to do anything. Not sure they had much training time either, so once again, that is unfair. Given it was the start of the year, though, we just needed something fresh and exciting from the Blue Brand, and we did not get it. Wasn't necessarily true at the time, but these days seeing Tatanga in that role, well, I like it. What a dude? Bring back to Tanga. Number 8, the Forgotten Diva. Do you remember Chrissy Vane? I'm going to say you don't, and if you do, awesome, you're that guy. She did sign the development on Dill on January 2006 and got her call up to Smackdown on the 28th of September 2007. Vane decided to attack Torrey Rilsson too after Tori had lost to Victoria. That feels a little mean, I mean, at least go after the winner. A week later on the 5th of October, we saw her again trying to win the favour of Vicky Grero, and that was it, genuinely. By the 10th of October, she was basically let go, so what the flub happened? It's not like she wasn't getting traction in developmental, and I would assume that WWE had a plan here. Otherwise, what do they think was going to happen? It just felt so weird when watching it on TV. When you do do some research, though, it does sound like Chrissy May have actually left due to family issues. So even though it was years ago, let's hope she is okay. And that is a real shame timeline-wise. I mean, you're all good to go and then life goes life. And because her run was so short, her career has sort of been erased from the history books. In 2011, she left the industry entirely, although Vane did make a mini comeback in 2019. I think her last recorded match was 2021, so who knows if she has more plans? That was likely post-pandemic. Maybe she just wanted to dip her toe one last time. It shall forever go down in law, though, that she beat up Tori Wilson for absolutely no reason.

She's going to hazard a guess. I don't think we're going to get an update on this now. Number seven, Chris Benoit's final Smackdown match. We shouldn't look out for stuff like this, but I guess we are a curious bunch by nature. I've talked about it a lot, but I really do struggle to watch Chris Benoit matches these days. each of their own, but if it wasn't for videos like this, I just wouldn't. I find it too difficult. When you do go through Smackdown

in 2007, however, you can't help but watch his movements and yeah. Just before he does jump to

ECW, Chris had a match with Edge and they get a solid 19 minutes. No shock to hear it's very good,

especially for TV. And before this, he was in a

feud with MVP too. Suppose that's his last proper program. It was over the US championship,

and MVP has spoken about this. He feels like the whole thing helped put him on the map.

Soon afterwards, though, Benoit does go to WWE EECW to fill the role Kurt Angle had left,

and then, yeah, the worst news came soon after this. I mean, there really are no words, even almost 20 years removed. It's just terrible. Number six, Rick Flair's run should have been more special. In the 2007 draft, Rick Flair was moved from Raw to Smackdown. Tying into what we were just speaking about, he too went after the US title to try and help get MVP even higher.

It was all right. When it was done, the nature boy went and found his old friend Batista, and he got injured. It's never fun. It did mean he was out for three months, and when he returned, he went to Raw. Don't try and justify it. It was a very Vince McMahon decision. Well, he didn't do much on the blue brand, so let's just sneak him back across. So I don't want to call it a waste of time,

but it wasn't great by WWE. There's loads flair could have done on the other show, although given he was on the shelf for so long, it did kind of feel like a big deal when he did turn back up on Raw. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Still though, he had two matches on Smackdown, than he was back on Monday nights and that ain't great. The second bout is totally mad too because it was Rick Flair and Shaw Michaels versus Edge, Charvo Guerrero, Zach Ryder and Kurt Hawkins in a steel cage. What? That was early 2000 as well after he had gone back to Roar, so don't overthink it. Of course, Rick Flair's retirement run was well in at this point, and we've talked about that before. It was good, but much like this decision, it did feel like WWE was sort of booking it week to week, and that never works long term. Number five, WWE dropped a wedding angle. So we all deep down love a good sports and entertainment wedding. WWE also loves to drop a story from nowhere, so I guess at one point these two things were finally going to converge. This was the 23rd of June 2007 when GM Teddy Long proposed to his girlfriend, Crystal. Didn't even have a last name in WWE land, so I guess a wedding could sort that out for her too. It did not go well for Teddy because Crystal ran away until she changed her mind. Yeah, that should have been the first red flag. Of course, there was going to be some more nonsense, so come September, Teddy had an in-story line heart attack. This was during the ceremony too, meaning the cliffhanger was, would Teddy long be able to recover, and would they finally be married? Turn out the answer was neither, because WWE just woke up one day and forgot the whole thing. It got worse too, because Crystal was released from her contract, so when Teddy was back, he honestly said nothing about this. It was kind of like we all made it up. Let me make this clear as well. This had loads of television time during the summer. Then nope, shut up. I wouldn't say I'm complaining because it was not great,

but Crystal getting let go seems so unfair.

She didn't book herself in this angle.

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