Peak WWE TV: The SmackDown Six

With a roster packed with company mainstays and the last vestiges of World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation introduced a brand split in March 2002 that saw Monday Night Raw and SmackDown have separate rosters. 

The early days of the brand split was very much a mixed bag. There were major positives like the rise of Brock Lesnar, but the company also lost The Rock and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as full-time stars, and there was a sharp decline in the quality of Monday Night Raw after years of must-watch TV in the Attitude era. 

One show that didn’t suffer from the same decline, though, was SmackDown as six of the finest wrestlers in the entire sport spent Thursday nights having great matches with each other. Those wrestlers became affectionally known as The SmackDown Six. 

The WWF Draft

At the time of the WWF Draft, only Kurt Angle and Edge looked set to be in positions to thrive on WWF television. 

Angle, the third overall pick in the draft, was coming off a WrestleMania X8 win over Kane and he was very much one of the premier talents in the World Wrestling Federation. His versatility had been well-established, as not only was the Olympic hero a refined presence that could shine in the silliest of non-wrestling segments, but his physical prowess and wrestling acumen were fantastic, especially for a man with less than four years experience as a pro wrestler. A sharpened killer instinct perfectly contrasted with his comedic skills, as Angle could be relied on to deliver in any situation.

Angle was selected to join SmackDown, and Edge, who went 11th overall, was set to feud with the Wrestling Machine. 

At the time, Edge was still realising his potential but he fit the WWF mould as a top guy with Hollywood good looks, boundless energy, quality promo skills, and great instincts as an in-ring performer. The smoke-filled entrance with the Rob Zombie music heralded what may as well have been a test-tube main eventer, concocted in the Stamford lab.

Edge was a natural foil for Angle, and they spent the spring of 2002 getting the best out of one another. Whether it was Edge embarrassing Angle with some sort of rib or joke, or the two throwing down in a heated battle, their matches were among the highlights of the year. The best bout between the pair was at that year's Judgment Day, when Edge defeated Angle in a Hair vs. Hair match, resulting in Angle receiving the post-match trimming.

The four other names from the SmackDown Six didn't immediately look set to receive the same sort of pushes, however.

Selected fifth overall in the WWF Draft by SmackDown was Chris Benoit, who had been on the shelf for close to nine months following neck surgery at the time of the Draft, and he wouldn’t return to TV until the end of May, nor would he wrestle again until early July of 2002. 

While Benoit’s invisibility was down to injury, the same couldn’t be said for Chavo Guerrero. After the Invasion spluttered to an end in November of 2001, Chavo found himself adrift as WWF simply didn’t have any plans for the former Lt. Loco. To demonstrate how low Chavo’s standing in the company was, he wasn’t even selected for a brand in the supplemental round of the WWF Draft hosted on the company’s website. Instead, Guerrero was simply assigned to SmackDown one week after the Draft and his first match on the blue brand was teaming with Hugh Morrus on Jakked.

On the April 1, 2002 episode of SmackDown, Chavo’s uncle Eddie Guerrero made his return to WWE, attacking Intercontinental Champion Rob Van Dam on Monday Night Raw. 

For some time, Eddie had been plagued by drug and alcohol-related issues, greatly affecting both his personal and professional life. He was ordered to rehab by WWE close to one year earlier, but a November 2001 vehicular incident at a gated community where he was staying resulted in Guerrero's arrest, and subsequent termination from WWE.

The firing, however, proved to be the turning point Eddie needed. Guerrero focused on getting his life back on track and for the next four months, Eddie worked numerous high-profile indies as well as New Japan Pro-Wrestling, while also remaining sober. By March, Guerrero was offered a new “prove-it” deal by WWF, which he accepted. 

Following Eddie to WWF was his old WCW rival in Rey Mysterio. While he would have been considered too small for the World Wrestling Federation of the 1990s, and is still small in stature by today’s standards, Rey Mysterio’s high-flying ability inside the squared circle and ultimate babyface personality cemented him as a popular talent around the world. 

Following the dissolution of WCW, Mysterio remained active in CMLL and on the American independent wrestling scene, even working for the short-lived XWF. By June of 2002, Mysterio had signed with the now-World Wrestling Entertainment. 

While few would have guessed it immediately following WrestleMania X8, by year's end, the well-pushed Angle and Edge, still-injured Benoit, languishing Chavo, refocusing Eddie, and incoming Mysterio would come to positively define a several-month stretch of SmackDown through their shared work together. 

Paul Heyman Secures The SmackDown Six 

As Angle and Edge wrapped up their feud on SmackDown, Benoit made his return, but on Monday Night Raw. Despite being drafted to SmackDown two months earlier, Benoit turned up on the red brand, kicking off a secondary reshuffling period as throughout the late spring and early summer, wrestlers would cross brands as WWE sought to achieve the balance of wrestlers that the company wanted. 

Benoit quickly formed a heel team with former Radicalz partner Eddie Guerrero, while Edge and Angle remained at the top of SmackDown. Chavo, meanwhile, was part of SmackDown’s cruiserweight division and WWE hyped up Mysterio’s impending debut on SmackDown. 

At the July 23 SmackDown tapings in Indianapolis, Mysterio finally made his WWE TV debut, defeating Chavo in a scintillating six-minute match. The bout quickly established that Mysterio still possessed his world-class talents and he very quickly became a WWE crowd favorite.

A week later, Benoit, now the Intercontinental champion after defeating Rob Van Dam on Raw, jumped to SmackDown with Eddie, lured away by GM Stephanie McMahon. Benoit crossing over was very much the doing of SmackDown's lead writer, Paul Heyman. The former ECW owner wanted Benoit on his show, and to get him it reportedly required playing to the tastes of Raw writer Brian Gewirtz. As Bruce Prichard recalled, Heyman knew that Gewirtz - who wrote a lot of the comedic material - enjoyed working with the likes of Chris Jericho and Christian, so Heyman leveraged sending them and Christian’s Un-Americans stablemates to Raw in order to secure Benoit and Eddie Guerrero on SmackDown.

Heyman later explained that Edge was supposed to become SmackDown's premier star, and that he also had high hopes for incoming OVW graduate John Cena. To help them level up, Heyman felt ring generals like Benoit and Guerrero were exactly the wrestlers they needed to be working with. 

With the trade, though, the SmackDown Six were in place. The aforementioned Mysterio victory over Chavo was the beginning of a rather unique run as for 22 of the next 23 weeks, SmackDown would broadcast at least one match that pitted one member of that sextet against another. 

SummerSlam 2002 had two such matches. The acclaimed event opened with a speed run pitting Angle against Mysterio that ranks among the best 10-minute matches in company history. Two matches later, Edge outlasted Eddie Guerrero in a very good match that centred around Guerrero working over Edge's arm.

Through September, Edge continued his feud with Eddie, and also Chavo by extension, after the uncle and nephew officially came together as Los Guerreros. Angle pivoted into a competitive rivalry with Benoit, while Mysterio simply dazzled in whatever match he was in as SmackDown became known as the brand for the best wrestling. 

At Unforgiven, the six men squared off, albeit in three different matches. Mysterio defeated Chavo in the Sunday Night Heat pre-show bout, while Eddie toppled Edge in an even better match than what they had at SummerSlam. For match of the night, Angle and Benoit thrilled in a 14-minute battle won by the Rabid Wolverine. 

The positive momentum continued on the post-Unforgiven SmackDown broadcast. Edge won the rubber match against Eddie in a tremendous no-DQ brawl that featured heavy ladder usage during its 19-minute duration. In the main event, Mysterio went over against Angle and Benoit in a nine-minute triple threat with tons of exciting action.

The WWE Tag Team Title Tournament 

If you wanted freshness, you were bound to find it on SmackDown, especially as a tournament came together to crown brand-exclusive tag team champions.

In between more great matches with each other, like Angle vs. Edge and Benoit vs. Mysterio on the October 3 broadcast alone, the SmackDown Six were put into three teams for the tournament. Los Guerreros were a given, while Edge and Mysterio came together as a team with impressive chemistry. Benoit and Angle, meanwhile, were fierce rivals, but they were forced together by GM Stephanie McMahon for the sake of proving that SmackDown's tag scene was superior to that of Raw’s. To make sure they did their best, it was decreed that if either man screwed the other over in a match, there would be dire consequences in an angle that Heyman ran in ECW with Chris Candido and Lance Storm five years prior.

While Angle and Benoit came close to self-destructing at inopportune times, they kept their differences in check long enough to win. After defeating Los Guerreros in an excellent semi-final match three nights before No Mercy, the duo went into the pay-per-view to face Edge and Mysterio for the belts, and their match was an all-time classic. 

On a night where Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker delivered one of the best Hell in a Cell matches ever, the SmackDown Tag Team Title tournament final was arguably the best tag team match in WWE history to that point. Angle and Benoit narrowly won a magnum opus that took home several awards, including match of the year, as chosen by readers of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

The tag wars raged on following the show as Edge and Mysterio defeated Los Guerreros on SmackDown that same week to earn a shot at the belts. Nonetheless, Eddie and Chavo challenged Angle and Benoit at the UK pay-per-view Rebellion in a match most notable for the ungodly cheers and chants for the heel Angle. 

The rematch of the tournament final was taped for the November 7 episode of SmackDown, to be contested as a two-out-of-three falls bout. Just 16 days after becoming the first champions of the SmackDown tag team belts, Angle and Benoit dropped the straps to Edge and Mysterio in the match that may have spawned Mysterio's first-ever around-the-ring post 619.

It may not have equalled the greatness of the No Mercy final, but this free TV bout was still phenomenal, and that had been the SmackDown trend for months. Great matches on a seemingly-weekly basis. Heyman's SmackDown wasn't going to deviate from this formula, either. 

For Survivor Series, the three teams were booked to face off for the titles in a three-way elimination match. Sure enough, the go-home SmackDown featured three singles matches that pitted the participants against one another: Edge over Chavo, Eddie over Mysterio, and feuding partners Benoit and Angle going to a double-DQ when the four other men interfered.

At Survivor Series, the titles changed hands for the third time in 28 days, after Los Guerreros outlasted the field to walk away as champions. The match was very, very good, but perhaps not up to the lofty standards previously set by the six men in their mutual encounters.

The End Of The SmackDown Six

After Benoit and Angle lost a rematch against Los Guerreros the following week, the two non-Guerrero duos functionally separated, and the four competitors returned to their singles pursuits.

On the December 5, 2002 SmackDown, Angle outlasted Benoit, Eddie, and Edge in a 21-minute, four-way elimination match to become number one contender for the WWE Championship, now held by The Big Show. While it was hardly SmackDown's last great match ever by any stretch, this was the point when the SmackDown Six began going their separate ways.

Benoit did beat Eddie in a match at Armageddon that was befitting of their expectations, and did go on to challenge Angle for the title at the 2003 Royal Rumble, but no longer were the six men largely, and borderline-exclusively, bound to one another.

Once January rolled around, SmackDown was no longer formulaically putting the six wrestlers against each other on a weekly basis. By February of 2003, SmackDown began feeling like a different show altogether.

Angle was WWE Champion, flanked by talented call-ups Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. Those two defeated an increasingly-popular Eddie and Chavo Guerrero for SmackDown's tag titles, and that feud would continue deep into the spring.

Benoit returned to the upper mid-card following the Rumble, and formed an unusual partnership with Rhyno. Mysterio entered familiar terrain when he joined the cruiserweight division, setting his sights on champion Matt Hardy V1. Edge, meanwhile, was about to miss over a year of action, after going under the knife for spinal fusion surgery.

As for Heyman, the man who championed these talented men and the thrilling television they provided, he was removed from his position as SmackDown's lead writer that February after falling out of favour with the bosses.

The Legacy Of The SmackDown Six

So what is the ultimate legacy of The SmackDown Six as a collective? The fact that fans still remember who comprised the group a generation later speaks to their overall effectiveness. They may be as emblematic of the early Ruthless Aggression era as anyone.

They can also take at least partial credit for making SmackDown the number one brand against Raw at the time.

When the brand extension started, Vince McMahon reportedly wanted to induce competition between the two sides. Raw had nominally been the designated A-show, despite SmackDown's placement on the fledgling UPN Network, and Vince apparently saw the split as a chance to get his staffers to try and outdo each other, creating better shows as a result.

Before September, Raw had beaten SmackDown in the Nielsen ratings every single week in 2002. In 17 weeks beginning with the September 2 episode of Raw and running through the December 26 SmackDown, Raw only beat SmackDown 8 of those 17 times. SmackDown took six of the battles, while tying Raw three times.

Admittedly, this is was partly due to Raw's numbers greatly declining amid the losses of major stars, but SmackDown largely remained consistent throughout the year.

Granted, the SmackDown Six weren't the only competitors keeping SmackDown’s positive momentum going. There was Brock Lesnar as WWE Champion, the popular Undertaker, Matt Hardy V1, and John Cena, now firmly in his Doctor of Thuganomics gimmick. Meanwhile, over on Raw, you had Katie Vick, HLA, the Triple H Reign from Hell, and other components that made Monday nights a good time to watch something else. 

While each of the two brands had their strengths and weaknesses, SmackDown was boosted by its emphasis on quality wrestling. Angle, Mysterio, Edge, Benoit, and the Guerreros played a massive role in defining 2002 WWE SmackDown as the place to be for some of the best wrestling on the planet, anchoring what was arguably the best half-year stretch for any WWE brand at any time.