Paul Heyman was fired as head writer in 2004. According to Heyman, he was caught listening in to a conference call discussing WWE Raw (1993). He made matters worse by admitting to Vince McMahon and Stephanie McMahon that he had fallen asleep during the call.
On September 18th, 2003, Brock Lesnar faced Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship in a sixty minute Iron Man Match. That match was voted "Match of the Year" by Pro-Wrestling Illustrated, the only match in Smackdown history to be awarded that honor.
The name of the show is derived from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's catchphrase "Layeth the smackdown".
The show is taped Tuesday nights and broadcast Friday nights. Their September 11, 2001 event was cancelled due to the terrorist attacks. On September 13, 2001, Smackdown was broadcast live as the first major and televised event since the attacks as thousands were in attendance. The ring ropes are usually blue for the Smackdown shows but were red, white, and blue for this night; these colors were commonly used during the 1980s and 1990s.
At the time of writing (April 2019), the WWE title has only changed hands three times in SmackDown history: in Sept 1999, when Vince McMahon defeated Triple H; and four years later, when Brock Lesnar beat Kurt Angle in a one-hour iron man match, when AJ Styles defeated Jinder Mahal, and when Daniel Bryan defeated AJ Styles.