The following editorial was written by Neil Raymond and does not reflect the opinions of WrestleZone as a whole. We encourage you all to discuss Neil’s thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this post or by tweeting him @NeilfromNYC
In July 2016 the WWE brought back the brand split. The question is whether it has been a success or a failure? Had the WWE been better off staying the way it was? Was it better to try something new? On one hand we no longer have endless rematches from RAW on SmackDown!. Otherwise, I think that it ultimately didn’t improve the product much, in fact it actually hurt it and a different approach should’ve been taken instead.
Before the brand extension, RAW was the “A show” and SmackDown! was the “B show”. In other words, the main storylines took place on RAW and SmackDown! just had rematches and minor storylines. SmackDown!’s status didn’t change since it’s become a separate brand again. They may now be different brands, but RAW is still seen as more important and for a wrestler to move to SmackDown! is seen as a “demotion” in the eyes of the fans.
Worse, the importance of titles is now severely lessened. AJ Styles is the WWE Champion, but his reign is hurt by the presence of Brock Lesnar as the Universal Champion. Women’s and Tag Team Champions are hurt because there are two champions in each division. RAW and SmackDown! are not different companies, they’re identical in production and content and they even share all pay-per-views. The only difference is the name of the brand, the titles and the roster. More so, the idea of having two champions for each division is as good as if Major League Baseball had two World Series in each season, or if the NFL had two Super Bowls. It confuses casual viewers and makes each title reign less legitimate.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a relaunch. That is a major part of the issue. Why did the WWE end the original brand extension that lasted from April 2002 to late 2011 (it just gradually ended with no announcements)? They ended it because they didn’t have enough main eventers to have two strong brands and so couldn’t avoid having a “B brand“. They tried having split Pay-Per-Views but ended that experiment. They even had to unify the Tag and women’s titles before ultimately ending the split. Once again they tried and ended the “single brand pay-per-views” concept, once again we have a “B brand” and once again we have a lack of main eventers for both shows.
Next Page: Has The Brand Extension Been A Success? A Look At Where RAW & SD Live Stand On The Eve Of WWE Extreme Rules (cont.)
