WWE's 15th Anniversary Of SmackDown, Taped In Philly, Airs Friday Night On SYFY

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – WWE will air a special 15^th Anniversary episode of SmackDown, tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy. The taping of the 15th anniversary showed occurred Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

"Big deal for us, 15 years of Smackdown," WWE star Seth Rollins told the 94WIP Morning Show on Tuesday. "We've been doing it for a really, really long time and we're going to take the time to kind of look back at the history of the show and really celebrate its history and everything its meant to our industry."

With nearly 800 original episodes, SmackDown is the second longest-running weekly episodic program in U.S. television history, only behind WWE's other flagship program, Monday Night Raw^®.  Averaging 3.1 million viewers each week, SmackDown beats all Friday primetime viewing on any cable network.

As part of the 15^th Anniversary show, Dwayne "The Rock^®" Johnson will appear in a special segment.  Tonight's SmackDown will be the 790^th episode for the series.  In comparison, Saturday Night Live has aired 766 episodes since it began in 1975, Gunsmoke aired 635 episodes from 1955-1975, Lassie aired 591 episodes from 1954-1973 and The Simpsons has aired 552 episodes since it began in 1989.

As part of the festivities, celebrities including Ben Roethlisberger, Cedric The Entertainer, Kyle Busch, Snoop Dogg, William Shatner and others will share photos from their WWE experiences on their social media platforms.

Prior to the 15^th anniversary episode, fans can watch the WWE Network special Edge and Christian's 15^th Anniversary SmackDown Show that Totally Reeks of Awesomeness, featuring WWE Hall of Famer Edge and WWE Superstar Christian, offering entertaining insight into the greatest moments from SmackDown's 15 year history.  The program is now available as part of WWE Network's video-on-demand library, containing more than 2,000 hours of content.

"DID YOU KNOW" FACTS ABOUT SMACKDOWN

1. The name SmackDown came from WWE Superstar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's popular catchphrase, "Lay the Smackdown."

2. SmackDown has been broadcast from 170 different venues, in 148 cities and towns, in seven different countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Iraq, Japan, Italy and Mexico.

3. It would take more than two months of uninterrupted viewing to watch every episode of SmackDown back-to-back.

4. WWE Superstar John Cena^® made his WWE debut in June 2002 on SmackDown.

5. WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar^® competed in a 60-minute Iron Man match on SmackDown in September 2003.

6. Brock Lesnar and Big Show^® fought to a no contest when the ring collapsed after Lesnar superplexed Big Show on SmackDown in June 2003.

7. Stephanie McMahon was the first SmackDown general manager while Teddy Long has the longest total tenure as a SmackDown general manager.

8. McMahon won his only WWE Championship on SmackDown on September 16, 1999 when he defeated Triple H^® with Shane McMahon as special guest referee.

9. The first Friday episode of SmackDown was on September 9, 2005 and featured Batista^® defeating JBL^® in a Bull Rope Match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship.

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