On this date in WWE history: The first ever SmackDown brand exclusive pay-per-view

When Vince McMahon bought World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and quickly exhausted the Invasion angle throughout 2001, he was left with a bloated roster of talent and not enough television to service them. So the idea was floated around the offices at Stamford to do what would come to be called the "brand extension."

In storyline at the time, McMahon was the leader of SmackDown and Ric Flair was the man in charge on Raw. So they held a draft that would become an annual tradition until last year and the two brands split off into separate entities. The idea was to create competition in the same manner they had going with WCW during the wildly successful Monday Night Wars in the late 90s.

They took this concept to the extreme on this date in WWE history (July 27, 2003) when they ran the very first SmackDown brand exclusive pay-per-view.

The event was Vengeance, and featured a main event triple threat match for the WWE championship. Brock Lesnar was the titleholder at the time and took on Kurt Angle and Big Show. Other matches on the card saw Undertaker vs. John Cena, Vince McMahon vs. Zach Gowen, and Sable vs. Stephanie McMahon.

Complete results from the show, as well as video of the main event, are below:

Eddie Guerrero def. Chris Benoit to win the U.S. championship
Jamie Noble def. Billy Gunn
Bradshaw won the APA Invitational Bar Room Brawl
Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas def. Rey Mysterio and Billy Kidman to retain the tag team championships
Sable def. Stephanie McMahon
Undertaker def. John Cena
Vince McMahon def. Zach Gowen
Kurt Angle def. Brock Lesnar and Big Show to win the WWE championship