A fan has shown WWE’s 2000s some love in WWE 2K25.
YouTuber JobberGames shared a frame-by-frame recreation of the original Friday Night Smackdown intro in 2K Sports’ latest game. It’s a fun little nod to a transitional period in pro wrestling’s history.
The History of Smackdown And Wrestling On TV
WWE, then still called the WWF had previously broadcast TV specials on NBC called Saturday Night’s Main Event. However, this was not equivalent to a broadcast network show that would go on US TV nationwide.
For much of their history, the WWF thrived in syndication and by selling PPVs. It had a major breakthrough with the launch of cable show Monday Night Raw, then on the USA Network.
Raw debuted years before the Attitude Era even started. In 1999, Stone Cold Steve Austin, D-Generation X and The Rock were international stars, and that made it feasible to get a broadcast deal.
In that same year, WWF signed a deal with the United Paramount Network, AKA UPN, to make Smackdown their first broadcast TV show in their history.
Why It Was Possible To Recreate This Intro In WWE 2K25
There’s something interesting about why it was possible to make this intro in WWE 2K25 in the first place. That’s because WWE managed to sign their biggest stars from that time to Legends contracts.
That doesn’t just include Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple H and Shawn Michaels. Both of the New Age Outlaws, Rikishi Fatu, X-Pac, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Kane, Lita, Chyna, the Hardys, the Dudleys, etc.
One notable addition in this intro is Chris Jericho. While there are rumors that Jericho is returning to WWE this year, he was with AEW when 2K Sports made this game.
JobberGames made a special case to recreate Jericho for his intro, using WWE 2K25’s community creation tools. This speaks to how powerful those tools really are.
While we wish JobberGames showed some love to some more superstars, like Big Boss Man and the Godfather, his recreation still does the job of invoking those memories of the Monday Night Wars and WWE’s brasher, controversy seeking era.
What WWE 2K Could Do In WWE 2K26
The WWE 2K games does include a deep community creation suite for fans to make recreations like this. But we hope they see the potential for what they could do for WWE 2K26.
They could flip it around and incorporate AAA and TNA to their roster for next year, complete with recreations of their classic events and intros. We would like to think that’s one that 2K Sports would be eager to do themselves instead of the community.
In the meantime, you can watch this classic intro below.
