With only a couple days remaining until the new era of WWE Smackdown begins on the USA Network, excitement is building. Will WWE change the format of the show and make it different from RAW? Will the logo, entrance area and theme music change? Will anything new last for a few weeks before everything goes back to the usual content that can be skipped without missing anything important?

We already know that WWE is bringing in the outstanding Mauro Ranallo to be the voice of the show which is an immediate step up from the trio that have been front and center. Rich Brennan was lost when he hosted NXT but rose up the the challenge of being the Michael Cole of Smackdown. That is to say that he was still a goof, but he did a much more competent job than expected after being called up to the main roster with very little seasoning. Over the last few months he has lost control of the show, however, and has no idea how to play off of Jerry Lawler and Booker T, his two color commentators.

With the changes on their way, Brennan is likely going to be out of that job. Ideally the Smackdown team should consist of Ranallo doing play-by-play and Booker T adding his silly side and analysis as a former competitor. Lawler seems to have checked out and doesn’t care to be there; his voiceovers for the 2K video games could probably fill in and nobody would notice a difference.

WWE has announced that John Cena will be making his return to the blue brand on Thursday night and it wouldn’t be shocking to see an Intercontinental Championship match between Kevin Owens and Dean Ambrose headlining the card.

Depending on the outcome of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match on RAW, Smackdown may see a special appearance from Mr. McMahon and if he isn’t there on Monday, Triple H might even be advertised to be confronting Reigns on Thursday night.

There is a lot of potential with the switch to the USA Network. Putting Smackdown on a TV channel that more people are conditioned to tune in on to watch wrestling is a good start. It gives WWE the opportunity to raise the profile of the show and make it important to the level it was in its first couple of years.

They don’t need to have all of the big stars there all the time, but it’s important to treat the show as almost equal to RAW.  If they use it to continue the stories from Monday instead of simply recapping them and then waiting until RAW to move the story forward, the two hours they have on Thursday night will immediately be more worthwhile to watch.

One example of making the show mean more is actually the use of contract signings. Usually when WWE wants to use a contract signing for a big match they do it on the final RAW before the PPV event and the two match participants don’t even show up on Smackdown and the segment is just recapped with a video package. Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens ended an episode a couple months ago with a contract signing, but that was for the IC Title. Do that with WWE Title matches (or with anything involving John Cena or a part-timer) and instead of an afterthought, Smackdown is presented as a show that the viewer needs to see.

That isn’t to say the IC Title isn’t important. Having Owens win the belt this Thursday night would be a good start to the hopefully new and improved Thursday Night Smackdown on the USA Network.

Nicholas A. Marsico is a featured pro wrestling writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter!