The History of Friday Night SmackDown

While wrestling was at an all-time popularity peak, the fledgling UPN Network was in need of some popular programming. On April 29, 1999, SmackDown appeared on the network for as a one time special that was picked up by the network for the next season. SmackDown became a weekly show starting on August 26, 1999. When the show started, it was on Thursday nights and went up against the WCW program Thunder on TBS.

When SmackDown started, Monday Night RAW was the flagship program of the WWE. In order to differentiate itself from RAW, the show used a blue color theme and had an oval shaped Titantron. The biggest difference between the shows though is that RAW is live while SmackDown is generally taped on Tuesday.

In January 2000, Thunder moved to Wednesday nights because it was getting destroyed by SmackDown. In 2001, the WWE purchased WCW. During the ensuing Invasion angle, Chris Jericho was gored through the set of the show by Rhino. That resulted in the end of the ovaltron and the start of the set featuring a giant fist. When the invasion ended, the WWE split their company in half. Half of the wrestlers were drafted to RAW and the other half became the exclusive property of SmackDown.

On September 9, 2005, the show was moved to Friday nights. The first episode to be held on a Friday night is notable for having the first half streamed on wwe.com instead of being televised due to the benefit event for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In 2006, UPN went out of business and the CW Network was created. The CW Network picked up SmackDown and continued to broadcast it on Friday nights. However, there was a problem with some affiliates when the changeover was made. Some of the UPN affiliates decided not to broadcast the final episodes of the show while some of the new CW affiliates were tied into broadcasting other programming (usually local sports) during that time.

The beginning of 2008 saw the WWE change over to the HD format. With that change there was a change to the set. The giant fist was replaced by a wall of HD screens. The show now uses the same physical set as RAW (excluding the ring ropes and apron) but looks different than RAW due to the nature of the images on the HD screens. In the fall of 2008, the show moved to MyNetwork TV, a network that is made up of many former UPN affiliates that didn't become a CW station.