• ON THIS DAY IN WWF HISTORY (March 29, 2001) – WWF SmackDown!
On this day in 2001, the World Wrestling Federation aired an episode of their weekly TV show ‘WWF SmackDown!’.
It was broadcasted from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan and featured pre-taped matches & storyline segments on the road to the ‘WWF WrestleMania X-Seven’ PPV.
Here’s the card:
1. X-Pac & Justin Credible vs. The Acolytes
2. Chris Benoit & Test vs. Eddie Guerrero & Kurt Angle
3. Matt Hardy vs. Rhyno
4. Steven Regal & The Big Show vs. Chris Jericho & Kane
• Hall Of Famer Says Vince McMahon Picked The Wrong Time To Fight AEW’s Growth, Says WWE Is Uninteresting
During a recent edition of his Grillin’ JR podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross talked about WWF WrestleMania 4 going up against WCW Clash Of Champions in March 1988.
WrestleMania 4 drew a 6.5 buyrate, while Clash Of Champions scored a 5.6 rating on television.
JR (who is currently a commentator on AEW) talked about how Vince McMahon is always strategising to stop his competition, but he chose the wrong time to fight AEW’s growth:
“Obviously McMahon was very interested in making sure that WCW did not grow. It’s akin to what he’s doing now with AEW. Just to do what he can to prevent the growth of the brand.
Unfortunately for him, he picked a time where his business is somewhat uninteresting to a lot of people based on the ratings. Timing for him on this one is not real good.
Thank God Turners has changed so much, the organization itself with the new management and owners, that’s why we do so great on TNT. We have a team that understands the genre and grew up studying it.
I believe they’re byproducts of an era where social media was a big part of their life. There was a whole hell of a lot of people that didn’t understand the business, and now they do.
That’s why I think AEW is doing so well with Turner again because they have a different staff, they’ve been educated differently, they have skin in the game and they love the product and that helps us.
We didn’t have those elements back in the day, we just didn’t have those. It was always challenging getting up to go to work, there would be good ideas but the follow through would be absolutely abysmal.”
WATCH: Alexa Bliss’ Buns Exposed On SmackDown:
