Even back then, it would be INCREDIBLY rare for WWF/WWE Monday Night Raw or WCW Monday Nitro to EVER beat NFL Monday Night Football in the ratings. At least in the USA, or at least in MOST PARTS of the USA.
When they announced that there was going to be a draft where Raw and Smackdown would be separate brands where wrestlers would compete on one show exclusively, I was very curious as to how it would work and concerned that it could hurt them in the long run but looking back now, I was blown away at how much star power the company had at the time. This is still to this day my favourite draft and it was the most special. Initially when it started with Ric Flair running Raw and Vince Mcmahon running Smackdown, it didn't feel any different at first but I felt when Eric Bischoff and Stephanie Mcmahon took over as GM's of the respective shows, things got much better and more exciting. It was like a modern day Monday Night Wars where both GM's were in a game of one upsmanship to prove that they were the superior show while trying to sign the big names to their brand. Ric Flair had the best picks but for me in the long run, Smackdown later on benefited the most out of the draft as they would go on to have their best run from July 2002 - March 2004 where they would put out some of the best ppv quality matches ever on TV and its still to this day my favourite period of the ruthless aggression era as a wrestling fan. I absolutely loved it.
honestly thought the best moment about that draft was undertaker getting angry in the lockeroom when he found out he was getting drafted to raw , getting so mad that he kicked a door open to leave
I probably played through it 10 times before I paid attention and realized I can just assign everyone to whatever show I wanted and just skip the draft.
That was one of the best Smackdowns ever IMO. Was it in that game where the nWo come back in the middle of the storyline or am I getting confused? The nWo angle might have been in the previous game. Been so long since I played them! Edit: should have just watched the video... haha.
Ive always said this; 2002 was WWE's ALLSTAR roster. They finally had WCW top guys wrestling, including Hogan and Flair. Rock and Austin had their final run as active top guys, Smackdown still had the best wrestlers in their prime like Eddie, Benoit, Jericho, Edge, Angle and Rey. Lesnar started his amazing rookie year. You were finally seeing the true potential of Jeff Hardy, RVD, Booker T, Kane and Christian, and got a returning Shawn Michaels...2002 was actually a pretty damn great year.
I remember when the Rock came out after he was drafted to SmackDown and the crowd was chanting "a**hole" and Vince said, "Don't talk about the Rock like that." 😁
I always thought it was strange that Vince took control of SmackDown. Raw is his baby and was always the flagship show, but they obviously tried to turn it into WCW with Flair, Bischoff, and the big gold World Heavyweight title.
Raw in the beginning of 2002 had all the former ecw and WCW stars aside from stone cold and undertaker and most of them was washed up. Which was why they had to send hhh and y2j to raw
If you look at it like a business then it's not strange at all. Don't look at it like a Mark and think. Now give me an explanation on why it made perfect sense.
Also it was the era of the Supershow. I went to one in 2006 in Memphis, TN where both Raw and SmackDown were in the same arena. Raw was live that night and SmackDown was taped and shown on TV later in the week.
@@kevinpayton2664 I remember the supershows.... thats when smackdown would not use the fist but the raw titantron with the smackdown shattered glass at the bottom. I have a question though, was smackdown taped before raw went live or after?
16:37 Hulk Still Rules T-Shirt spotted in the crowd. They were definitely putting Hogan back in the red and yellow. When he first came out with his new red and yellow attire, I was ecstatic.
During this time in wrestling I was homeless and couldn’t watch, but I played a lot Smackdown vs Raw at a friends house and I remember the cut scene where Vince spins around on his nwo chair
I remember when the Dudley Boyz were broken up. They eventually got back together, but I was really shocked when Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin(The World's Greatest Tag Team)was split.
One little thing that I love during the early days of the brand split was the cruiserweight title belt itself. They didn't have the WWE version of the belt ready at that point, so they just used the WCW cruiserweight belt, completely unaltered. I still remember watching Backlash '02, and the onscreen graphic for the belt was just the WCW version with a WWF scratch logo slapped on top.
Another excellent video. I dont watch any wrestling anymore but i was an every weeker between 98-03. This has really taken me back. Thanks for your hard work.
Do you do everything for your channel. With the content, music, editing etc? Because if so you should be doing this on a bigger platform. I know RU-vid is huge and can pay well but I mean people need your talents. Like ummm WWE..lol.. But seriously in my opinion your RU-vid channel is the best wrestling channel. Just different and more in depth then the others. Keep it coming because we love the content
I've been watching the videos in order since the Invasion, I never realized how much I actually miss the storylines from back then, how they blended so well and how some stories ended up having more than just 2 people or a certain group of people. 😳🤷🏽♂️🤘🏽😎👍🏽
I'd love another video in this series, detailing how/when the "Undisputed" Championship became exclusive to one of the brands, leading to the creation of a new World Championship, and the new "general managers" of the two brands. Down the line, hopefully more videos about the end of the original brand extension and the future re-splits (by which time, I'd stopped being an active WWE fan, so I know very little about it - I'd love your rundown of the splits' histories)
I live in the UK. I could only watch Smackdown, as it was shown at 12 on a Saturday morning on Sky One. We didn’t have cable TV so couldn’t watch Raw, which was shown on Friday nights. Still bitter about not getting to see the likes of Undertaker, Kane, RVD, etc.
Before this draft, me and my friends used to argue if the wrestling was real but after this draft, it was quiet apparent even to 8 year old that this was just a show 😂
When there is such a large roster, the brand split is essential. WWE's worst recent period was when it didn't have a brand split and Smackdown was just a rerun show of RAW. Sooner or later AEW will need their brand split, considering the amount of talent they have on their roster, to keep the wrestlers from getting lost in the crowd. As for the draft, the best draft was without a doubt in 2005, I loved that draft model, we only knew who was drafted on the show itself, two drafts per show, and we had great moments like the arrival of John Cena with the WWE title on RAW or the last day with Batista with the world heavyweight title on Smackdown. This model (of the first draft) only made sense at this time or when the brand split returned, doing this now, in 2021, as if the wrestlers were all free agents, made no sense at all.
I really appreciate all you do for us wrestling fans. All your vids are top notch and your work does not go unnoticed. I just have a small request and I hope you see this, but would you possibly be interested in making a FMW video? Or at least a wrestler from that promotion (hayabusa, tanaka, onita, etc)
RVD vs Kurt Angle were some of the best matches from this period. Kurt would always get a busted mouth against Rob. The Draft is when I stopped watching, but at least they were trying to do something different.
It is a sad world when Mr Perfect vs Tazz lasts 2 minutes in duration and it barely gets a mention nearly 20 years later. These two men are legends in their own right.
The draft eventually started the transition period from Attitude Era to Ruthless Aggression Era.. With Vince McMahon's Ruthless Aggression promo being the final nail in the coffin for Attitude Era..
The Alliance should've won at Survivor Series. Imagine how much fun creative could've had if they brought WCW back for a while while the WWF had to make a comeback.
Growing up WWE used to only be shown in my country 2 or 3 weeks later than it happened. A free channel had both the shows and it used to show Raw at 5PM on a sunday and Smackdown at 8 or 8:30 PM on a wednesday. The PPV's were on a premium tv service only but we got em all. I remember this feeling of having to watch a specific show to see a specific group of wrestlers. Each show offered people i wanted to watch. I obviously being a child always preferred Smackdown cause majority of the talent were my favourites. Raw just didn't hit the same for me but it had specific people i liked a lot. At school we used to discuss wrestling non stop when we didn't talk about cartoons. Around the time that talents stopped being brand exclusive was when watching wrestling started to feel exhausting like we watched out of routine instead of recreation. Also the PPVs being brand specific was always refreshing. Things just got no good when every show and PPV had the same people, and yet now there's too many people as well
The original brand extension is so much better than the modern one and it's mainly because you have stars on the respective shows during the ruthless aggression era
Vince McMahon said it best (when talking about the drop in business/creativity after the acquisition of WCW and ECW respectively) when he said "You find yourself running twice as hard when someone is chasing you, once no one is left chasing you its just harder to push yourself to go faster" paraphrasing a bit there but that totally sums it up.
It would have been cool if WCW was kept alive. Imagine wrestlers like the Undertaker making a Monday night nitro appearance against Hogan and the NWO. So many creative ideas could have been implemented.
Also if ya want to do vid no one's done yet ( I know cuz I looked everywhere) since they are back teaming ya could do vid on miz and Morrison like ya did with hbk and hhh how they teamed then became opponent, also vid on all who held the unified tag titles 😎🤘🙏