Will they ever "fix" this brand split?

[Lackin]

I used to love the Brand wars but now i don't even watch Smackdown anymore. WWE should sort out this problem and bring back the Draft and Bragging rights so we have Brand Supremacy

 

[Zack Ryder]

Smackdown is getting boring these days

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

When wrestlers are constrained to being apart of a specific brand, it limits the number of opponents they can feud with.

I view this as a positive. It brings back the possibility of 'dream matches' like back in the day when everyone didn't wrestle everyone. You have Star A on Raw and Star B on Smackdown, but they can't wrestle one another. When they finally wind up on the same brand you have a match that has a lot of anticipation around it instead of just giving it away ASAP when both guys are on both shows. It keeps feuds fresh and prevents the company from running through all of the sexy match ups too quickly.

I vote in favor of not resurrecting the brand split but rather leaving it in the ground where it lies already.
One way out of this could be to say that while the two shows have separate brands, maybe people can jump to the other at any moment? Just like how people can freely defect to different promotions in real life? The logic could be that each show has 'ownership' over certain titles that can only be defended on that show, and if you have the title and then defect to the other brand, you can't bring the championship with you so you'd end up stripped of it. For example, say Raw has the WWE Championship, Intercontinental Championship and the Tag Team Championships, while Smackdown has the World Heavyweight Championship, United States Championship and Diva's Championship. However, the wrestlers themselves can decide to go to whichever brand they want to, as long as the General Manager of that respective brand wants to sign them. This way, titles remains consistently with one show and because guys are 'apart' of a brand but aren't forced to stay there, WWE can have two guys feud if they want them to by simply having one of them jump to the other brand and get into a spontaneous situation where a feud with said wrestler erupts without having to wait until the annual draft show to have them end up on the other show.

What? no. As I mentioned before the way you can have guys move shows is through GM trades. I remember Edge being traded for Punk a few years back. And what would the point of the brand split be if guys were just freely hopping back in forth? It renders the entire idea useless.

However, this would likely just water down the concept depending on how often people jumped, therefore making the whole idea mostly pointless.

exactly

Overall, I personally feel it's best to just leave the brand split dead and buried. Looking at the roster as a whole, does anyone really think there's enough overall people of talent and merit to really justify having faith that WWE could actually book two separate branded shows with their own PPVs?

Absolutely I think there is plenty of talent to justify the brand split, especially with so many recent NXT call ups + guys who are ready to be called up at this point. WWE misuses so many talents and a big part of it is not using Smackdown properly. As for having brand exclusive PPVs, I'm not about that. I would rather all PPVs be co-promoted with matches from both brands, similar to how it was before they stopped using the brand split.

I've always been a bigger fan of just having one ultimate world champion of the company anyway. Speaking of which, I do agree that if the brand split is gonna remain dead, they should get rid of the WHC soon enough. From a kayfabe point of view, having two guys who both claim to be "The Best" of the company isn't really consistent. I'm pretty sure the contract they have with Mattel might have something to do with the WHC still being around, though. They have some kind of creative control over whether WWE gets rid of one of their championships since it would affect the money they make from it's replica being sold (terrible logic since they can still sell the replica of a belt even if it's vanished from TV, but whatever.)

I'm fine with having two champs as long as there is a legitimate brand split. The way it is now, yea, it sucks and the WHC is useless. I didn't feel that way when the WHC was the champion of the Smackdown brand.

 

[Lockard 23]

I view this as a positive. It brings back the possibility of 'dream matches' like back in the day when everyone didn't wrestle everyone. You have Star A on Raw and Star B on Smackdown, but they can't wrestle one another. When they finally wind up on the same brand you have a match that has a lot of anticipation around it instead of just giving it away ASAP when both guys are on both shows. It keeps feuds fresh and prevents the company from running through all of the sexy match ups too quickly.

This is a positive of a brand split but even when it's all just one show, they can be smart and keep certain guys apart until the time comes to pit them against one another. I can see how separate brands would build anticipation better when you have two shining stars making their brand stand out (namely in the main event, Cena versus Batista in 2005 for example) but it seems to me the same sort of thing can be at least mostly accomplished without it.

It all depends on the booking (same goes with the brand split being resurrected and used properly.)

Absolutely I think there is plenty of talent to justify the brand split, especially with so many recent NXT call ups + guys who are ready to be called up at this point. WWE misuses so many talents and a big part of it is not using Smackdown properly. As for having brand exclusive PPVs, I'm not about that. I would rather all PPVs be co-promoted with matches from both brands, similar to how it was before they stopped using the brand split.

I'm surprised you would be against brand exclusive PPVs since it's supposed to be one of the main points of distinguishing between the shows when there's separate brands. Raw and Smackdown having it's own PPVs to me kinda goes right along with having it's own world champion, it's own GM, etc. Isn't the issue with two world titles without a brand split that one title (WHC) will always seem inferior to the other? Having both world titles ALWAYS defended on the same PPV wouldn't really be any different than it is now. Hell, even now, they could eradicate this problem when it comes to the TV shows at least by booking the WHC to be the main part of Smackdown.


Anyway, I'm kind of two minds about this. I can see the argument for a brand split - having Cena on Raw and Punk on Smackdown, The Shield on Raw and the Wyatt Family on Smackdown, etc. and differences like that between the two shows, but I just don't mind there being just one full, complete roster again. And with WWE deciding to recently stop calling even their separate house show tours "Raw" and "Smackdown", I'm getting the feeling they're obviously headed in this direction.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

I'm the same way tbh. I can see why some people like not having the split, but for me the pros far outweigh the cons.

 

[Aids Johnson]

Fix it? Smackdown goes live.

Yeah that isnt enough. Get rid of the people who need tapings, and people who need the cheers/boos edited in. Have it be a real product, and have your WHC and IC (isnt ic smackdown? or us) be on there to help build. I really enjoyed when you had DZ, ADR, Henry, and a lot of other superstars pretty exclusively on Smackdown. Now, it's like being buried/forgotten about (dz's return match, etc)

 

[Aids Johnson]

Hey everyone, look! TheBeardedVagina liked my post. I think we can close the thread, i clearly am the winner.

 

[BaraaKhalaf92]

I say they should either go for a complete split, like back in 2003 when SD was equal to RAW and the WH title was just as prestigious as the WWE title if not even more, or they should just cancel the whole brand split and drop the WH title.
But this current situation with the semi brand split is just nonsensical and ridiculous imo.

 

[Dat Kid1]

I think the Smackdown product has been improved since that stale run. I mean they have some major guys go over there at times. They're heading in the right direction as far as I'm concerned because I'm starting to see things on the PPV video's and I'm like "that happened on Smackdown, I better watch". I think if they ran angles through Smackdown like they did when it first launched it would be in better shape.

By the way, random question but has Raw ever won a bragging rights tag match, just saying

 

[MrWrestlemania1988]

It would be nice to see the brand split again, it was so much better then than now