_Logo.svg){kind=logo} Logo for the brand and theWWE SmackDown television program since September 13, 2024[1] | |
| Product type | Professional wrestling Sports entertainment |
|---|---|
| Owner | WWE |
| Produced by | Paul "Triple H" Levesque Lee Fitting |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | March 25, 2002 (first split) July 19, 2016 (second split) |
| Discontinued | August 29, 2011 (first split) |
| Related brands | Raw NXT Evolve |
| General Manager Nick Aldis | |
SmackDown is abrand of the Americanprofessional wrestling promotionWWE that was established on March 25, 2002. Brands are divisions ofWWE's roster where wrestlers are assigned to perform on a weekly basis when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers assigned to SmackDown primarily appear on the brand's weekly television program,Friday Night SmackDown, also referred to simply asSmackDown. It is one of WWE's two main brands, along withRaw, collectively referred to as WWE's main roster. The brand extension was discontinued between August 2011 and July 2016.
In addition to the television program, SmackDown wrestlers also perform on the branded and co-brandedpay-per-view andlivestreamingevents as well as the quarterlySaturday Night's Main Event special. During the first brand split (2002–2011), SmackDown wrestlers also competed on an exclusive supplementary show,Velocity, and onECW under a talent exchange program with the formerECW brand, while during the second brand split (2016–present), the brand's wrestlers have appeared in the interbrandMixed Match Challenge,Worlds Collide, and annualTribute to the Troops events.
In its conception, according toBruce Prichard in hisSomething to Wrestle podcast released in October 2018, the then World Wrestling Federation (WWF) originally planned to makeSmackDown! anall-women's brand but ultimately decided against it because of the lack of talent.[2]
In March 2002, WWF underwent the "brand extension",[3] a process in which WWF divided itself into two branches with separate rosters, storylines andauthority figures.[3] The two divisions, hosted by and named afterRaw andSmackDown!, would compete against each other. The split resulted from WWF purchasing its two biggest competitors,World Championship Wrestling (WCW) andExtreme Championship Wrestling (ECW); and the subsequent doubling of its roster andchampionships. The brand extension was made public during a telecast ofRaw on March 18, initiated with the firstdraft a week later on the March 25 episode ofRaw and became official on the April 1 episode ofRaw.
Wrestlers began to wrestle exclusively for their specific show. At the time, this excluded theWWF Undisputed Championship andWWF Women's Championship as those titles would be defended on both shows.[3] In August 2002, then WWE Undisputed Champion,Brock Lesnar, refused to defend the title onRaw, in effect causing his title to become exclusive toSmackDown!.[3] The following week onRaw, Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff awarded a newly instatedWorld Heavyweight Championship to Raw's designated number one contenderTriple H. Accordingly, Lesnar's championship was no longer deemed "undisputed". Following this, the WWE Women's Championship soon became a Raw exclusive as well. As a result of the brand extension, an annual "draft lottery" was instituted to exchange members of each roster and generally refresh the lineups.
SmackDown! was the home brand for many top WWE stars includingEddie Guerrero,Batista,Big Show,John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL),Kurt Angle,Edge,The Undertaker,Rey Mysterio,John Cena, andTorrie Wilson. Guerrero would go on to become the WWE Champion as part of the show, thus becoming the main feature ofSmackDown! throughout 2004 and the most popular wrestler of that year. The biggest star of the next decade, John Cena, started his WWE career on this brand and rose to stardom as "Doctor of Thuganomics" on the show, eventually winning his first WWE Championship during his tenure on the brand.
On June 6, then WWE Champion John Cena switched brands from SmackDown! to Raw as part of the month-long2005 draft lottery. This effectively left SmackDown! without aworld title. On the June 23 episode ofSmackDown!, SmackDown! General ManagerTheodore Long scheduled asix-man elimination match betweenBooker T,Chris Benoit,Christian (replacing Big Show, who was picked by Raw in the lottery), John "Bradshaw" Layfield,Muhammad Hassan and The Undertaker to crown the first SmackDown! Champion. On the June 30 episode ofSmackDown!, JBL won the match, but Long appeared afterward and stated that even though he had won the match SmackDown! did not need a championship anymore, instead revealing that JBL was the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship, at which pointBatista, then World Heavyweight Champion, entered the ring as SmackDown!'s final draft lottery pick.
At theSmackDown! taping on January 10, 2006, that aired January 13, Batista had to forfeit the World Heavyweight Championship because of alegitimatetriceps injury suffered at the hands ofMark Henry the previous week. Long decreed abattle royal for thevacant title, which was won by Kurt Angle, who was on the Raw brand, but switched to the SmackDown! brand for the duration of his reign as champion. On the April 7 episode ofSmackDown! (which was taped on April 4), Long revived theKing of the Ring tournament after a four-year hiatus as a SmackDown! exclusive tournament. The tournament ended atJudgment Day withBooker T as the winner, defeatingBobby Lashley in the final.
On October 16, 2007, the SmackDown! andECW brands began a talent exchange, allowing their respective talent to appear and compete on either brand, asECW was broadcast live from the same arena whereSmackDown! was taped.[4][5]
During the2008 WWE draft, WWE Champion Triple H was drafted to SmackDown, resulting in two world championships appearing on the brand –Edge was the World Heavyweight Champion at the time – and leaving Raw without a world title. However, Edge was attacked by Batista on the June 30 episode ofRaw and immediately afterwardsCM Punk cashed in hisMoney in the Bank contract to become World Heavyweight Champion, bringing the World Heavyweight Championship back to Raw for the first time since 2005. Also that year, for the first time in the brand's history a women's exclusive championship was introduced, theDivas Championship, a counterpart to the Women's Championship that had been the only active championship competed for byDivas, but which was exclusive to Raw, meaning that the Divas on SmackDown had no championship to compete for.Michelle McCool became the inaugural champion by defeatingNatalya on July 20 atThe Great American Bash.
On February 15, 2009, atNo Way Out, Edge won the World Heavyweight Championship in Raw'sElimination Chamber match, thus making it a SmackDown exclusive title and giving SmackDown two top tier championships.[6] As a result of the2009 WWE draft in April, then WWE Champion Triple H was drafted to Raw while the World Heavyweight Championship also moved to the Raw brand after Edge lost the title to Cena atWrestleMania 25, once again leaving SmackDown without a world title.[7] SmackDown regained the World Heavyweight Championship atBacklash when Edge invoked his WrestleMania rematch clause and defeated Cena in a Last Man Standing match to win the championship back.[8] In addition, Raw and SmackDown exchanged both women-exclusive championships with Raw gaining the Divas Championship and SmackDown gaining the Women's Championship. This marked the first time in history that the Women's Championship had ever been exclusive to SmackDown. Raw and SmackDown also exchanged theUnited States Championship (which became exclusive to Raw) and theIntercontinental Championship (subsequently exclusive to SmackDown) for the first time sinceAugust 25, 2002.[7]
On the August 29, 2011, episode ofRaw, it was announced that performers from Raw and SmackDown were no longer exclusive to their respective brand.[9] Subsequently, championships previously exclusive to one show or the other were available for wrestlers from any show to compete for—this would mark the end of the brand extension as all programming and live events featured the full WWE roster.[10] In a 2013 interview withAdvertising Age,Stephanie McMahon explained that WWE's decision to end the brand extension was due to wanting their content to flow across television and online platforms.[11]
On May 25, 2016, it was revealed that the brand split would return in July.[12] The2016 WWE draft took place on the live premiere episode ofSmackDown on July 19 to determine the rosters between both brands.[13] On the July 11 episode ofRaw,Vince McMahon namedShane McMahon the commissioner ofSmackDown.[14] Then next week onRaw,Daniel Bryan was revealed as the new SmackDown General Manager.[15] Due toRaw being a three-hour show andSmackDown being a two-hour show, Raw received three picks each round and SmackDown received two.[15] WWE ChampionDean Ambrose was SmackDown's first pick.[16]
After the return of the brand split, most pay-per-views became exclusive to one brand, (with SmackDown producingBacklash (2016 and2017),No Mercy (2016),TLC (2016),Elimination Chamber (2017),Money in the Bank (2017),Battleground (2017),Hell in a Cell (2017),Clash of Champions (2017) andFastlane (2018)). FromWrestleMania 34 onwards, all pay-per-views became dual-branded again.
On the November 7, 2017, episode ofSmackDown,AJ Styles defeatedJinder Mahal for the WWE Championship.[17] On April 10, 2018, SmackDown Commissioner Shane McMahon announced that Daniel Bryan was back as a full-time WWE Superstar for the roster after his in-ring return atWrestleMania 34, therefore "graciously accepted Daniel's resignation as SmackDown General Manager". McMahon then namedPaige, who had retired from in-ring competition due to injury the night before on Raw, as the new SmackDown General Manager.[18]
When SmackDown moved to FOX beginning with the October 4, 2019, episode, it eventually replaced Raw as the "A" Show.[19] As a result, SmackDown became the home for the WWE's top stars such asRoman Reigns,Brock Lesnar,Drew McIntyre andthe Usos.
Initially, the Undisputed WWE Championship and the original WWE Women's Championship were available to both brands.[20][21][22] The other championships were exclusive to the brand the champion was a part of.[20][21][22] When the brand extension began, SmackDown became the exclusive home for theWorld Tag Team Championship and the originalCruiserweight Championship.[23]
In September 2002, the Undisputed Championship became the WWE Championship again and was moved to SmackDown, prompting Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff to create the World Heavyweight Championship for Raw.[24] SmackDown created theWWE Tag Team Championship and they revived the United States Championship.[25][26] Over the course of the first brand extension, these championships switched between brands, usually due to the result of the annual draft. However, the Cruiserweight title was the only championship to never switch brands, staying on SmackDown from 2002 until the championship's retirement on September 28, 2007.
In October 2007, SmackDown and ECW began a talent exchange agreement, which meant that SmackDown talent could appear onECW and vice versa. This allowed the United States Championship and WWE Tag Team Championship to be shared between the two brands.[27] In July 2008, the Divas Championship was created for SmackDown, allowing the SmackDown Divas to compete for a title.[28]
With the brand extension ending in 2011, all Raw and SmackDown titleswere merged. After five years, a new brand extension was introduced on July 19, 2016. SmackDown drafted the WWE Champion and the Intercontinental Champion. As SmackDown was lacking atag team championship and awomen's championship, Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan introduced theSmackDown Tag Team Championship andSmackDown Women's Championship.[29] In the2017 Superstar Shake-Up, the Intercontinental Championship was moved to Raw and in exchange, the United States Championship moved back to SmackDown. The following year during the2018 Superstar Shake-Up, the United States Championship was moved to Raw, but returned to SmackDown the next night. AtCrown Jewel on October 31, 2019, SmackDown wrestler"The Fiend" Bray Wyatt won theUniversal Championship, thus bringing the title to SmackDown.[30] On the next night's episode ofSmackDown, WWE ChampionBrock Lesnar quit SmackDown and went to Raw, taking the title with him.[31]
| SmackDown | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Championship | Current champion(s) | Reign | Date won | Days held | Location | Notes | Ref. | |
| Undisputed WWE Championship (WWE andUniversal championships) |  | Cody Rhodes | 1 | April 7, 2024 | 342 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | DefeatedRoman Reigns in aBloodline Rules match atWrestleMania XL Night 2. | [32] |
| WWE Women's Championship | .jpg) | Tiffany Stratton | 1 | January 3, 2025 | 71 | Phoenix, Arizona | DefeatedNia Jax in herMoney in the Bank cash-in match onSmackDown. | [33] |
| WWE United States Championship | _(headshot).jpg) | LA Knight | 2 | March 7, 2025 | 8 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | DefeatedShinsuke Nakamura onSmackDown. | [34] |
| WWE Women's United States Championship | _(cropped).jpg) | Chelsea Green | 1 | December 14, 2024 | 91 | Uniondale, New York | DefeatedMichin atSaturday Night's Main Event. | [35] |
| WWE Tag Team Championship | .jpg) | The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins andMontez Ford) | 2 | March 14, 2025 | 1 | Barcelona, Spain | Defeated#DIY (Johnny Gargano andTommaso Ciampa) onSmackDown. | [36] |
| WWE Women's Tag Team Championship | .jpg) .jpg) | Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez † | 3 (3, 4) | February 24, 2025 | 19 | Cincinnati, Ohio | DefeatedBianca Belair andNaomi onRaw. | [37] |
| Championship | Time on brand |
|---|---|
| World Tag Team Championship (WWE) | October 20, 2002 –April 5, 2009 |
| WWE Intercontinental Championship | April 16, 2019 –April 28, 2023 |
| Women's World Championship (WWE) | September 11, 2016 –May 1, 2023 |
| Championship | Time on brand |
|---|---|
| World Heavyweight Championship (Original) | June 28, 2005 – June 30, 2008 February 15, 2009 –April 5, 2009 April 26, 2009 – August 29, 2011 |
| WWE Divas Championship | July 20, 2008 – April 13, 2009 |
| WWE Women's Championship (Original) | April 13, 2009 –September 19, 2010 |
| WWE Cruiserweight Championship (Original) | March 25, 2002 – September 28, 2007 |
| World Tag Team Championship (Original) | March 25, 2002 – July 29, 2002 |
| WWE 24/7 Championship | May 20, 2019 – November 9, 2022[nb 1] |
