SmackDown's 20th Anniversary, or the 20th Anniversary of SmackDown, was a special episode of WWE's weekly television program SmackDown that took place on October 4, 2019, and commemorated the program's 20th anniversary. It was broadcast live on Fox, and marked the SmackDown's return to Friday nights (thus it was renamed to Friday Night SmackDown).
The broadcast featured current WWE wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions as well as Hall of Famers and Legends from the past. The main event saw Brock Lesnar defeat Kofi Kingston in eight seconds to win the WWE Championship for a fifth time in what was Lesnar's first match on the brand in 15 years. In other prominent matches, Kevin Owens defeated Shane McMahon in a ladder match resulting in Shane being (kayfabe) fired, Roman Reigns defeated Erick Rowan in a lumberjack match, and in the opening bout, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch defeated Bayley and Sasha Banks.
The event also saw Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's first appearance on SmackDown in over five years, and the WWE debut of mixed martial artist Cain Velasquez and professional boxer Tyson Fury.
Background
Production
SmackDown! made its debut as a professional wrestling television special for the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) on UPN on April 29, 1999, and made its debut as a weekly program for the network on August 26. Over the years it had shifted networks; before its move to Fox, SmackDown had previously aired on some Fox affiliates that had UPN programming before become The CW in 2006 and its sister syndication service MyNetworkTV from October 2008 to September 2010.
On June 26, 2018, WWE announced that SmackDown would move to Fox on Friday nights beginning on October 4, 2019, under a five-year contract valued at $205 million per-year. Amid a competitive bidding situation, NBCUniversal and USA Network chose to focus on retaining Raw. The move to pursue SmackDown came as part of Fox's increasing focus on live sports programming and non-scripted entertainment, in the wake of the then-upcoming sale of its film and television studios to Disney. The network's founder Rupert Murdoch promised extensive promotion of the program during its sports telecasts, and proposed a weekly WWE studio show on its cable network FS1. On June 17, 2019, the Staples Center was chosen as the host venue for the event. Tickets went on sale on August 16.
On September 26, 2019, WWE announced that Michael Cole would be returning to SmackDown for the first time since 2008 to lead the commentary team alongside his former Raw colleagues Corey Graves and Renee Young. The following night, Fox aired a special, SmackDown's Greatest Hits, which featured memorable moments from the program's 20-year history. Booker T and Young hosted a half-hour kickoff special prior to the premiere, joined by Fox Sports reporter Charissa Thompson as "blue carpet" correspondent.
Storylines
The show comprised matches that resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live (with this broadcast renaming the latter to Friday Night SmackDown).
At Clash of Champions, Kofi Kingston defeated Randy Orton to retain the WWE Championship. On the following SmackDown, after The New Day (Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods) defeated the team of Orton and SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Revival (Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder) in a six-man tag team match, Brock Lesnar (accompanied by Paul Heyman) returned and challenged Kingston for the WWE Championship, which Kingston accepted.