On television, SmackDown Live Commissioner Shane McMahon has preached that his show is about the superstars and the fans first.
McMahon recently appeared on Cheap Heat, ESPN's pro wrestling podcast and spoke on the fact that his show has had the deck stacked against it since the WWE Draft several weeks back. In the Draft, for every 2 picks SmackDown Live would have, opposing WWE show Monday Night RAW would receive 3 picks. Shane McMahon insists that he will make SmackDown Live the better WWE program.
"Distinctly different? Absolutely correct. Second or on par? Absolutely not. There is a lot of personal pride and you're already starting to see, as we kinda say internally, Team Blue, which I'm proud to be a part of, we're out to win. We want a better show, we want better creative, we want better talent, we want better quality matches and that's exactly what we're trying to pull off each week. It's a big ship to turn but I feel we're, each and every week... we're not going to do a great job every week, even though we try, but we are definitely changing the direction of where SmackDown goes, specifically. And because of what we're doing Team Red or Raw is saying 'oh, look what they're doing.' Now, again, there's a lot of personal pride in it in saying 'good luck, you guys keep going.' The deck was stacked and that's fine with Daniel and I. Raw got an immense amount of picks. We definitely wanted some of the talent to come over to SmackDown but we have a great crew and we're trying to develop more talent you'll start to see -- we can talk about that a little bit later -- coming into SmackDown. But more importantly utilizing what you have. We have an immense amount of great guys and girls that have never, to your point earlier, gotten the opportunity to let it out there. That's what we're all about."
Television ratings for both shows have gone down slightly since the WWE Draft, but both shows have been dealing with coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics. SmackDown was supposed to get former WWE stars back on the blue brand, namely Shelton Benjamin, but the WWE medical team discovered a shoulder injury that will keep him from returning to the company.
Credit to cagesideseats.com for transcribing the interview. The full podcast can be heard here.
