WWE: How SmackDown Live became the show to watch
The SmackDown Women’s Division
At TLC 2018, Asuka, Charlotte Flair, and SmackDown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch main evented the Pay-Per-View to signify an important change in WWE.
The women stood alone at the summit of the company.
This moment came during the heated rivalry between Flair and Lynch, which reached its peak in a Last Woman Standing match at Evolution that was indisputably the best main roster match of 2018. For months, these two women battled each other in and out of the ring on the road to WrestleMania 35, making a women’s main event finally happen.
But remember, Asuka was the woman who won at TLC, in the same year that she became the first woman to win the Royal Rumble.
The SmackDown Women’s Division has always been filled with superstars both experienced and new. Carmella, Alexa Bliss, and Becky Lynch are just three women who won their first titles and became stars on the Blue Brand, and perhaps the likes of Liv Morgan will be next.
But it is a brand that has also been held together by women who started in the Divas Era. Natalya and Naomi have put together the best work of their careers inside the ring as members of the SmackDown roster, with Naomi’s “Glow” gimmick and title victories winning over fans emotionally. At one point, Naomi was SmackDown’s biggest babyface.
Or how about Nikki Bella and Maryse? The latter played a critical role in turning Miz from “solid hand” to “possible main eventer”. Meanwhile, Nikki helped give Carmella and early taste of the limelight before she’d eventually become a hell of a heel champion, and Nikki would later partake in a hellacious rivalry that featured a hidden gem of a Falls Count Anywhere match.
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Today, the SmackDown Women’s Division is still in good hands with Bayley as champion. “The Hugger” has centered her moral code around her close friendship with Sasha Banks instead of around “the greater good” (hence the change in character), which has led to even more brilliant character work from one of 2019’s top performers.
Despite being one hour shorter compared to Raw, SmackDown has, generally speaking, been the place for weekly women’s wrestling in WWE. Hopefully that doesn’t change, because whenever SmackDown deviated from this, the overall product suffered.