Does It Matter If The Criteria Is In The FROM Or The WHERE?

I have a query that searches through a 4 million record table. The data is fed from the UNIX flat file systems so the data is not in optimal search format. So I created some views that massaged the data and then index them. I select and join the original table with the view, with NOEXPAND hint on the view. My question is this theory right: If I put the criteria in the FROM join part then it will make the join easier than if I put it in the where clause?

Example (any difference)
SELECT stuff1, stuff2 FROM UglyData u INNER JOIN MassageTable m ON m.RecNumber LIKE '112%' AND u.ID = m.ID
versus
SELECT stuff1, stuff2 FROM UglyData u INNER JOIN MassageTable m ON u.ID = m.ID WHERE m.RecNumber LIKE '112%'


THANKS!!!