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SmackDown 1000 is officially in the history books and well, it was a bit of a mixed bag. The show itself was a solid enough effort, and the matches pretty much all delivered across the card, but it just felt as though something was missing.
With the company spending the past several weeks hyping the event, the lack of any real drama or surprises on the night left the whole thing kinda feeling just like a normal episode of SmackDown.
The New Day dropping the tag-team titles was a big shock, and the opening segment featuring the McMahons and R-Truth was a lot of fun, but there were several other things the WWE could have done to have made the night better.
Let's take a look at five missed opportunities from SmackDown 1000, and see how they would have improved the show.
5: A retro stage
The WWE stopped caring about stages years ago, but the return of the iconic SmackDown fist stage would have gone a long way to helping last night's show feel special.
The company utilised this tactic for Raw's 25th Anniversary show this year, and while that show didn't exactly set the world on fire, it did at least have a unique aesthetic that will stick in the minds of fans.
If nothing else, it is a nice way of paying homage to the history of the show, and having today's stars walking down the iconic entrance ramp would have created a unique visual.
4: No surprises
Okay, so it's a little harsh to completely blame the WWE for this one, but while they may not have been able to get The Rock or Stone Cold to turn up, they could have at least have gotten Kurt Angle or Matt Hardy to make an appearance.
There are several current WWE employees who were a big part of SmackDown history, and they could have easily booked some of those to appear on the show.
Kurt Angle, for example, would have made for a fitting addition to the show, instead of just appearing on commentary.
3: Backstage segments
One complaint levelled at Raw's 25th-anniversary shows was that the whole thing relied far too much on backstage 'comedy' segments. WWE clearly took this criticism on board, because SmackDown 1000 basically featured nothing in the way of backstage segments.
The segment featuring Paige, Teddy Long, and Vickie Guererro was a nice touch, and it would have been nice to have seen a few more interactions like this throughout the night.
We saw Jeff Hardy chatting to Rey Mysterio ahead of his match with Shinsuke Nakamura, but they could have turned this into a little surprise by having Matt Hardy make an appearance as well, for example.
2: Evolution getting physical
Evolution's return was one of the most heavily hyped segments for SmackDown 1000 and now that it is all said and done, simply put, it was fine.
The four men had some humorous exchanges, and the WWE teased a match between Batista and Triple H later down the line but outside of that, this really didn't do a great deal for the show.
Evolution were never an integral part of SmackDown, despite what the WWE has been telling us, so the stable couldn't really reminisce too much about their time on the brand, and as a result, this just turned into four men having a bit of banter with one another.
The WWE could have used the group much better by either having a physical confrontation between the members of the group or by feeding a tag-team to them to beat down.
The Revival were given the privilege of having Triple H and his buddies beat them down at Raw 25, and frankly, it's quite surprising no-one was given that duty at SmackDown 1000.
1: A bigger ending
Having The Undertaker, one of the most iconic superstars in SmackDown history, come out to close the 1000th show made a lot of sense. Having him cut pretty much the exact promo he has been cutting for the last few weeks on Raw, however, was a little bit of a disappointment.
SmackDown 1000 was a really enjoyable show, but it never really felt like a celebration, and having the show close with some sort of bang could have provided the brand with another iconic moment to celebrate in the future.
Instead, we got given the usual 'Rest in Peace' shtick from The Undertaker, and the show closed with him stood at the top of the ramp with his fist raised, which is basically how every episode of Raw since SummerSlam has closed. He didn't even bother addressing his history on the brand, instead, he just mentioned his match at Crown Jewel and that was that.
