Before the advent of Automated Events, Poring Smashes were hosted manually. At first, GMs would spawn porings and manually drop items in them, and it could take a long time to set up the event. But eventually, smash poring mobs were created which dropped cool items, similar to our current smash porings, and GMs would occasionally just drop a few special items inside.
Now, they're fully automated but just as popular. Though, sometimes GMs still host special ones with extra items inside.