Mike the Executioner
What went on up there? Poppers and weird sex!
That's the thing. They used to do that all the time. One thing Vince actually knew how to do was make RAW and SmackDown feel important when he could. You were guaranteed to see your favorite stars in segments and matches every week. I was watching a RAW segment from 2008 last week, and they had Punk, Cena, JBL, Batista, and Kane all in the same ring. Then they had a four-way match to see who would face Punk for the WHC. They rarely do stuff like that on TV anymore.
Nowadays, the top stars are mostly separated, and it's rare they'll wrestle against each other on the weekly shows. Back then, you would have big stars in multi-man tag matches, or world title matches on TV. Cody hasn't defended his title once on SmackDown. Rhea barely is on the show as it is. In 2010, you had The Undertaker show up on RAW just to answer Shawn Michaels' challenge for a WrestleMania rematch. And when he said no, he was willing to give Shawn the match that same night if he really wanted it. They wouldn't even tease something like that now. Everything has to be built up and saved for later.
