Pro in some ways and anti in others. The womens division needs to be split or else we'd have an endless Charles/Becky/Bianca rivalry. The mens main event scene should be split too to give other guys chances and so you don't have a Roman situation where one part time guy holds the belts hostage and either one show gets the champ or none do. Stuff like the tag team division should be unified though. The way they handle the womens tag division being on both shows is how the mens tag division should be.
Very much like this.
The Roman "uNdIspuuTeD" 2 belt shoulder warmer champion thing is very much a Paul Heyman project and it sucks balls because it sounds like 2001, it forces all the challengers into vacuum of no belt holders so that it's always a naked guy versus the guy who holds all the bling.
Maybe something like having a new grand champion (undisputed) belt on top of heavyweight championbelts you can only get by winning both SD and RAW - Money in the bank - Rumble - or just by accepted personal challenge would be better for variety matches while putting the Raw and SD belts back to competition for a reason other than just being the champ, maybe something like that could work and make these part timers have more reason to be the top guy?
Pro, but only if it's extremely strict like it was in the mid 2000s. Separate PPVs, trashing each other on air, etc. Make it a fake monday night war type thing.
If you have just the right amount of people from jobbers to main eventers on each show then it works great. Otherwise if you have too many people to the point you're consistently not using everyone then it doesn't.
Early 2000s was good because it got Brock over, Cena, Batista. Freshened things up as Austin an Rock were leaving. Later on it got stale and SD was presented as more the 'midcarder' show to help catch people up with what the main story was on RAW.
This current draft from 2016 till now has been good imo. It works well because Vince kept the rosters small and it wasn't as strict. FOX has helped SD a lot
But generally speaking, it comes down to the state of the company at the time
Pro only if done right, the brands need to have their own PPVs with only some interactions during events like MITB and Royal Rumble. Scrap the survivor series 5 man and instead just do a points based system where brand with most points wins and gets first pick in draft or something. It also means survivor series is big again because you could have potential "dream matches" that you wouldnt get to normally see.
Raw and SD never really distinguished themselves enough. I guess SD has generally been seen as the "workrate" show while Raw is the main show, but that's not enough difference in identity for stuff like Survivor Series or the draft to really mean anything. Since NXT 2.0 is now clearly developmental, maybe having SD take on more of the trappings of Black and Gold NXT might help make the distinction more, well distinct.
>maybe having SD take on more of the trappings of Black and Gold NXT might help make the distinction more, well distinct.
Raw is already more like NXT.
people say raw is the "workrate" show and smackdown is the sports entertainment, I dont see it because outside of the bloodline and sami smackdown is very boring, it might be a good idea to try that.
Big brand split mark. I love having two distinctly different shows each week. Whenever it’s just the same rosters and stories on both, one always becomes pure filler. They’ve struggled to keep enough talent for both though.
The only con I’ve ever really seen with a brand split is necessitating two world titles with slightly devalues them, but that’s an easy trade for having two different shows. Also WWE just can’t seem to stick to it and they got into a habit of trading guts between them so much each year that every 2-3 years, RAW was just SD from 3 years ago and vice versa.
Im in the camp of if it makes sense for them to appear on a show to progress a feud, then let them. So in a sense im anti bran split. But then there are also shitters who defintely needs to be contained to just one show and lesser exposure to hide their dimelessness away, so im also pro brand split
Pro brand split but they have to reduce the amount of titles because they basically mean nothing. There should only be one world champion, one set of tag titles, one women's champion etc. and then you can throw them on the different shows and make them feel distinct.
Pro
More people get the shine (deserving people)
Competition (even if it's internal) will be beneficial by providing the show who has more viewers with actual benefits to its wrestlers like a bonus or pay increase
Two distinct shows with its own storylines (SD 2016)
anti because the small rosters mean seeing Street Prophets vs Alpha Academy again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again
pro, running the same guys doing the same storylines for 5 hours a week would get the fans burnt out on guys fast, plus the writers would have to book double the shit as well. raw needs the wwe title back though, Id love for seth or bobbo to hold it.
Raw >WWE Champion >Unified Women's Champion >Intercontinental Champion (merge US Championship)
Smashdown >Universal Champion (rename to Heavyweight Champion) >Unified Tag Team Champions >Cruiserweight Champion
That's all you need. Put all of the tag teams on Smackdown. You can still have tag matches on Raw, but they are to advance storylines, not to win championships. Likewise, put all the wrestling women on Raw, and put the valet women on Smashdown. You can still have women's matches, but they will mainly serve to advance the storylines of their men.
Most importantly >both shows are 2 hours only >limit your big talent to only one match between PPVs.
Pro in some ways and anti in others. The womens division needs to be split or else we'd have an endless Charles/Becky/Bianca rivalry. The mens main event scene should be split too to give other guys chances and so you don't have a Roman situation where one part time guy holds the belts hostage and either one show gets the champ or none do. Stuff like the tag team division should be unified though. The way they handle the womens tag division being on both shows is how the mens tag division should be.
Very much like this.
The Roman "uNdIspuuTeD" 2 belt shoulder warmer champion thing is very much a Paul Heyman project and it sucks balls because it sounds like 2001, it forces all the challengers into vacuum of no belt holders so that it's always a naked guy versus the guy who holds all the bling.
Maybe something like having a new grand champion (undisputed) belt on top of heavyweight championbelts you can only get by winning both SD and RAW - Money in the bank - Rumble - or just by accepted personal challenge would be better for variety matches while putting the Raw and SD belts back to competition for a reason other than just being the champ, maybe something like that could work and make these part timers have more reason to be the top guy?
Pro if it's done correctly, but it has never been done right in WWE. So I'm against it.
Pro, but only if it's extremely strict like it was in the mid 2000s. Separate PPVs, trashing each other on air, etc. Make it a fake monday night war type thing.
Depends on how the company is at the time.
If you have just the right amount of people from jobbers to main eventers on each show then it works great. Otherwise if you have too many people to the point you're consistently not using everyone then it doesn't.
Early 2000s was good because it got Brock over, Cena, Batista. Freshened things up as Austin an Rock were leaving. Later on it got stale and SD was presented as more the 'midcarder' show to help catch people up with what the main story was on RAW.
This current draft from 2016 till now has been good imo. It works well because Vince kept the rosters small and it wasn't as strict. FOX has helped SD a lot
But generally speaking, it comes down to the state of the company at the time
anti
they don't commit to it
don't do enough to make the shows feel different either
Pro only if done right, the brands need to have their own PPVs with only some interactions during events like MITB and Royal Rumble. Scrap the survivor series 5 man and instead just do a points based system where brand with most points wins and gets first pick in draft or something. It also means survivor series is big again because you could have potential "dream matches" that you wouldnt get to normally see.
I don't care really, but it's annoying when wrestling fans get mad about it "not mattering"
It not mattering makes the split pointless
Pro
You can create even more stars that way and the talent is happier.
Just look at Smack 2016 for a good example
good idea but i feel like WWE just uses it and the draft as a crutch to get them out of their shit booking
Anti. The first brand split is where WWE really started to go wrong.
Raw and SD never really distinguished themselves enough. I guess SD has generally been seen as the "workrate" show while Raw is the main show, but that's not enough difference in identity for stuff like Survivor Series or the draft to really mean anything. Since NXT 2.0 is now clearly developmental, maybe having SD take on more of the trappings of Black and Gold NXT might help make the distinction more, well distinct.
>maybe having SD take on more of the trappings of Black and Gold NXT might help make the distinction more, well distinct.
Raw is already more like NXT.
people say raw is the "workrate" show and smackdown is the sports entertainment, I dont see it because outside of the bloodline and sami smackdown is very boring, it might be a good idea to try that.
Big brand split mark. I love having two distinctly different shows each week. Whenever it’s just the same rosters and stories on both, one always becomes pure filler. They’ve struggled to keep enough talent for both though.
The only con I’ve ever really seen with a brand split is necessitating two world titles with slightly devalues them, but that’s an easy trade for having two different shows. Also WWE just can’t seem to stick to it and they got into a habit of trading guts between them so much each year that every 2-3 years, RAW was just SD from 3 years ago and vice versa.
Im in the camp of if it makes sense for them to appear on a show to progress a feud, then let them. So in a sense im anti bran split. But then there are also shitters who defintely needs to be contained to just one show and lesser exposure to hide their dimelessness away, so im also pro brand split
Pro brand split but they have to reduce the amount of titles because they basically mean nothing. There should only be one world champion, one set of tag titles, one women's champion etc. and then you can throw them on the different shows and make them feel distinct.
Pro
More people get the shine (deserving people)
Competition (even if it's internal) will be beneficial by providing the show who has more viewers with actual benefits to its wrestlers like a bonus or pay increase
Two distinct shows with its own storylines (SD 2016)
anti because the small rosters mean seeing Street Prophets vs Alpha Academy again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again
Pro, but only if they actually try to make the shows feel different. The brand is Raw or Smackdown, not WWE, they shouldn't mirror each other
pro, running the same guys doing the same storylines for 5 hours a week would get the fans burnt out on guys fast, plus the writers would have to book double the shit as well. raw needs the wwe title back though, Id love for seth or bobbo to hold it.
Raw
>WWE Champion
>Unified Women's Champion
>Intercontinental Champion (merge US Championship)
Smashdown
>Universal Champion (rename to Heavyweight Champion)
>Unified Tag Team Champions
>Cruiserweight Champion
That's all you need. Put all of the tag teams on Smackdown. You can still have tag matches on Raw, but they are to advance storylines, not to win championships. Likewise, put all the wrestling women on Raw, and put the valet women on Smashdown. You can still have women's matches, but they will mainly serve to advance the storylines of their men.
Most importantly
>both shows are 2 hours only
>limit your big talent to only one match between PPVs.
putting women on one show is never gonna happen. feels like you copied svr08 gm mode kek.
Pro if they do it right.