Live Smackdown Tonight: Why I Hope It's Permanent

Smackdown goes live tonight in what the WWE is promising to be a historic event. If RAW last night is any indicator, the only way it makes history is if it's historically bad. Then again, WWE has a tendency to be schizoid in how they produce shows. One week, they can be knockout great, and another, ehh, not so much. Maybe they have all their A-material planned for tonight. Who knows.

Either way, I hope tonight is a great success. As you might have noticed in the last month or so, I've been sporadic in my DVR watching. It isn't because I don't WANT to watch the wrestling I can't watch live. Except maybe Impact, because some weeks, it's a fucking chore to get through that slop. But no, I really want to watch Smackdown. Sometimes though, I get too busy. I'm a married man, and I do like spending time with my wife. We do stuff on the weekends, and sometimes, it precludes me from being able to watch the contents of my DVR. It's life.

That being said, I rarely have anything going on Tuesday nights. I CAN watch wrestling live at that point. I think most people can too. It's why networks put their best shows on nights like Tuesday (or Monday or Wednesday or even Thursday). Friday is a social night. People go out, eat dinner, have drinks, dance, bowl, watch movies. By and large, they don't watch wrestling or much TV at all, even. Sure, there are people who do watch Smackdown live who have otherwise fine social lives and make Friday nights appointment viewing, but at the same time, there's a reason why four million people watch RAW each week and maybe two million watch Brand Blue. Odds are, two million people are like me. They'd like to see the travails of folks like Christian, Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton Wade Barrett live, but they'd rather not give up one of their free nights.

That's why I want this to be a huge success. I want to be able to watch wrestling that matters on a night that's convenient for me. I'm not alone in this either. Plus, it keeps up a really good momentum for our wrestling fandom, especially on a PPV weekend. Three straight days of wrestling with another five to chew on what happened seems to be a good thing for me at least. With Smackdown moving to live viewing, I'll probably be more apt to shift into the other room on Thursdays to watch Impact live too, and then maybe watching NWA Hollywood, Superstars and when it begins to be streamed on the web, ROH at my convenience as well.

But that's only if tonight does well. So yeah, I know I really don't care about the ratings as much anymore, but for the love of all that's good, let tonight break SyFy's ratings records and force them to put Smackdown live. It would be better for everyone involved.