Revisiting 1,000 Episodes of SmackDown – The Lost Podcast
Many fans of The Wrestling Estate will know that Jack Goodwillie in addition to being the current Editor in Chief at The Wrestling Estate previously hosted a podcast series known as The Wrestling Estate Freakshow.
The show produced fantastic episodes over the years, one of which was the podcast debut yours truly!
But what fans don’t know is that in 2018, Jack and Steven recorded a special podcast show celebrating (at that time) the upcoming 1000th episode of SmackDown. Sadly, due to technical difficulties, the full show was not able to be released in audio form.
However, I recently uncovered our original recording and instead decided to transcribe our great conversation about ‘The Blue Brand’ for all of you to enjoy!
Stay tuned for a Part 2 in the coming days!
Jack Goodwillie: WWE calls Raw the episodic spectacular. But for me that was SmackDown for a long time. There was a time and even today it is creatively better than Raw in many ways. It has a lot to do with talent and writing.
SmackDown had a vibe to begin with that it was “Raw 2”. But it was around mid-2002 when it really began to have its own identity. What were your earliest memories of SmackDown Steven?
Steven Jackson: As we didn’t have satellite TV at the time when SmackDown debuted, the main memories were playing the video-games at friend’s houses and watching SmackDown itself at friend’s houses too.
The earliest memories I have were the oval staging and titantron, the blue styling of the ring and graphics and Michael Cole. Michael Cole was the voice of SmackDown and he was a brilliant SmackDown commentator.
JG: What did you make of John Corrigan’s list of SmackDown commentators?
SJ: I was really surprised how many commentators SmackDown has actually had!
JG: Yes, I liked John’s list too. I was also surprised at how many commentators there were. JBL who I now call “JiBL”. I call him that because Simon Dean called him that from when JBL used to get drunk and pick fights with people. And Tazz.
Honestly, Tazz is not the best commentator in the world. However, he had amazing chemistry with Michael Cole. One of the greater commentary teams ever.
SJ: Yeah, one of the things I really liked about the SmackDown commentary is that it didn’t feel like Vince was holding them as much. Especially with Heyman in the early 2000s as it didn’t feel like Vince was overtaking Heyman’s personality.
And Mick Foley was great on commentary as was Mauro Ranallo, who brought back some of the vibes of the early SmackDown stuff with Cole for me. I always think SmackDown has had a great Play-by-Play, Colour announce team, whereas Raw has been a bit hit and miss.
JG: I think Raw had it easy for a long time with JR and King, and then when JR went over to SmackDown, they brought back the 3-man booth on Raw which I’m not a huge fan of.
Cole and Tazz are definitely the 1A to the 1 which is JR and King. Tazz and Cole bounced off each other really well. Some of my earliest memories involve them as well as the fist staging too!
SJ: Yeah, it would be cool if they ever do another retro SmackDown to have the fist at the top and the Ovaltron at the bottom.
JG: Early SmackDown memories for me too, are the first episode I watched which was around Great American Bash 2004, and Undertaker faced John Cena in the main-event. And I knew nothing of John Cena at that time. And what bravery facing The Undertaker. Eddie Guerrero caught my attention on that show, and arguably is the greatest of all-time. And delivered the best promo of the semi-modern era.
And he cut the promo before I started watching and it was retrospectively. Have you seen it?
SJ: Yeah, I saw it at the time, and I thought it was astounding. Eddie was on fire and you could see the passion, and Brock put him over higher than anyone ever expected, and it was a brilliant piece of TV wrestling. Such a great moment in the history of the show. And it is so hard picking a moment. I chose the ring break! I never expected to see anything like that!
It was something which would usually happen on PPV, but happened on TV. It was brilliant. Eddie’s promo is definitely up there with the “Pipebomb.”
JG: It is like the “Hard Times” of the Attitude Era. A great underdog promo about redemption. Eddie said that he and Lesnar both love being in the ring, but Eddie is an addict and that he won’t stop at anything to win the belt. It was just so good!
And when there was SmackDown Five, I bought some magazines, and reading about the ring break, as well as the Rey Mysterio vs. Matt Hardy feud. But number 1 was the Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show ring break.
I remember coming across that episode and it stuck out big time! It had never been done before and it was awesome. The comparison has to be “the irresistible force vs. the immovable object”.
Lots of great comedy too, like Kurt Angle and the Midget, or battle rapping John Cena.
SJ: One of my favourite moments was Eddie Guerrero giving Big Show the burritos and the sewage truck. Kurt Angle with the wig on during the Edge feud, and when it got taken off during the cage match. Angle’s very witty, and really refreshing and natural.
JG: Kurt up until that point had always been a goofball that could kick your ass. But then you see him mix the comedy in better, and it became a component of his character, rather than his full character.
SJ: SmackDown was where he was able to come into his own. He was able to switch and mix up roles so it wasn’t just one dimensional. I think it really added into the identity of SmackDown. More layering of the characters and the feuds which were happening at the time. Kurt was just one of a kind at that point. The SmackDown Six and 2002 all the way! Summer 2002 to Spring 2004, it was amazing.
JG: For those who don’t know, the SmackDown Six was a group of six wrestlers who had interchangeable matches and intertwined feuds on SmackDown. You could put them in any match stipulation on any card and it was dynamite.
The wrestlers were Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Edge and Rey Mysterio. You’ll hear a lot of different thoughts on Paul Heyman’s position on SmackDown during this time. However, if you look at this era on SmackDown and compare it to ECW, there’s tons of similarities regarding the angles and the creative philosophy of Paul Heyman. And it definitely contributed to making WWE so exciting during this era.
Paul’s thought was that Raw’s got all the big names, so give me a selection of talent who can have great matches and I’ll make the most out of them. These six guys were able to go! So put them in the right spot, the fans can see that and get over. Maybe not via the traditional methods WWE usually takes. But they will get over and SmackDown ratings will be really good.
SJ: It was a fantastic concept. These core guys could go in any direction; singles matches, tag-team matches, triple threats, fatal four-ways, all these interesting combinations, as well as two-out-out-three falls and elimination matches concepts as well. It was really a time when ‘wrestling’ was able to shine through.
It allowed them to show their wrestling ability in a different way. What I loved as well is that the past was referenced too. So, for example, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero had feuded in WCW, and this played into situations. The chemistry all six guys had was electric and almost instinctive. The opener to Summerslam 2002 between Kurt Angle and Rey Mysterio is a prime example of that.
I believe it was their first ever match against one another and it was just off the charts! Then you throw in the innovation of moves, along with later on the tag-team element of Edge and Chris Benoit, and again the intertwining storylines. It was just so unique. You can definitely see the influence of ECW throughout that period.
One of the other great things about the period is that a lot of the best matches took place on TV, as opposed to PPV. Because at that time, my family didn’t order the PPVs. So SmackDown was my opportunity to watch excellent wrestling.
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