The Return of the Brand Split?

[Ali]

Shane McMahon, in his return, specifically asked for control of Monday Night RAW... not the entire WWE. Now, it could easily just be a case of WWE being like the rest of us and completely forgetting that SmackDown! exists, but what if the goal is, in fact, the return of the Brand Split?

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm all for it. To me, the Brand Split will encourage three things.

1. Talent Exposure. By having less crossover between RAW and SmackDown, it might give opportunities to showcase more under-utilized talent. We've all said that the talent level in WWE is among the best its ever been, so we might get to see that. If there's only so many "Main Event" slots to go around, we might see more talent get pushed there.

2. Creative Consolidation. I do feel like the main criticism of the idea is that, "They can barely fill the time they have now, diluting it between two brands might make it worse." I kind of think the opposite is possible. It might be a case where by splitting up the creative minds between two brands, there might be a little bit more focus put towards a cohesive goal for each brand. Plus, it'll force things to be written for the aforementioned under-utilized talent.

3. Manufactured Competition. This is the big one for me. WWE really has no competition at this point. TNA, ROH, Lucha Underground... they're nowhere near the level of popularity it would take to make WWE step up their game. My solution is to bring back that rivalry between RAW and SmackDown. Make not only the wrestlers, but the creative team want to out-do the other brand. If you split the roster, you can easily build storylines around RAW vs. SmackDown again, it's a built-in rivalry. WWE has to have some sort of incentive to do better, so make it internal. RAW Creative vs. SmackDown Creative, out-do the other team.

Of course, these are just my personal thoughts, and it could easily backfire. But could it happen? Could we set up a Shane-run RAW against a Stephanie-controlled SmackDown?

[Hanley!]

I've heard this suggested a couple of times since the Shane thing, but I doubt there's any chance of it happening. Do you really think that they'd pick the middle of an injury crisis and a talent shortage to consider running a brand split again? It doesn't make sense. If you were to split the rosters right now, the shows would be ridiculously thin. Worse than they've ever been.

A new brand split would suck anyway. I mean there are definite advantages to a brand split if done right, but they never did it right. And the number of wrestlers who are over on the roster keeps going down. Right now they don't have the depth of talent to run two rosters effectively. And there's no way they're good enough at their jobs to pull it off against all odds. Think of the worst case scenario and it'll probably be worse than that.

I do like the idea of keeping wrestlers apart so when you do a draft, the wrestlers have new opponents. But with the roster they have now, they can't afford to go keeping people apart for that long. The idea of creating more main eventers is a valid one, but I think all that does is make the "main eventers" seem less like stars. If there are two champions neither one necessarily feels like THE GUY. And we're more likely to have a parade of midcarder world champions like Swagger, The Miz, etc.

I just don't think it can be done right now, and even if it could, they wouldn't be able to do it right.

[Headlesspete]

If there are two champions neither one necessarily feels like THE GUY. And we're more likely to have a parade of midcarder world champions like Swagger, The Miz, etc.

But when the option of having one champion, thus, THE GUY, be Roman Reigns, then hell I'll take Miz or Swagger as champion on Smackdown!

I've seen the idea tossed around, and in a dream scenario I'd love for this to happen, just because i seem to enjoy WWE may more when there were two separate brands. But Hanleys right, these simply not enough talent to fill two rosters and make it work.

Back in the day we have massive stars in their prime like Orton, Cena, Angle, Jericho and Mysterio, along with legends who were there full time like Triple H, Undertaker and Michaels, plus a plethora of former WcW and EcW stars ready to step up, along with the OVW years worth of talent in the mix. It made sense back then to create two brands.

Now however, there's no legends left to make a full time appearance, most of the over superstars are either injury prone or part time at this point, and all the talent in NXT that could be used to fill up the roster spots, would leave NxT with nothing, and it would seem WWE are intent on building NXT up as its own entity.

[Westcoastvibes]

I can see a brand split with one difference from before. The championships are only defended on PPV, have #1 contenders decided on raw and SD then have the top guy from each show face off as the opening match to determine who gets a shot at the gold.

Still have only one WHC then split the lower titles per show. Maybe even use the lower titles as a prerequisite of sort to even get a shot at the big belt.

[JPG619]

I can see a brand split with one difference from before. The championships are only defended on PPV, have #1 contenders decided on raw and SD then have the top guy from each show face off as the opening match to determine who gets a shot at the gold.

Still have only one WHC then split the lower titles per show. Maybe even use the lower titles as a prerequisite of sort to even get a shot at the big belt.

I really like the idea, since I hate it when a new guy just comes in the WWE and puts him in a title picture and when other wrestlers have earned his or her way to get a shot at gold. This way they can build up guys more and more then just giving them title shots when they first step foot in the door.

[Daz]

If they split the brands again, could you imagine how badly a 3 hour Raw would suck?

[Westcoastvibes]

If they split the brands again, could you imagine how badly a 3 hour Raw would suck?

This depends on your opinions of why it sucks. Th3y could split again and ra2 would still suck because its all filler garbage w8th occasional entertainment.

[DBSoT]

A brand split only works if it includes a full split. That means two completely separate shows. Separate rosters, separate PPVs and separate storylines. The roster being thin isn't as bad as some might think though. You start with the available people and then as wrestlers recover you can use a storyline of them deciding which show they are loyal to. It would feel more like the rosters for each show are being built over time. Similar to how NXT keeps debuting new people every few months to their brand. It feels like the brand is filling out and new rivalries can happen. The one big issue I see is will WWE have the balls to put a major player on Smackdown. Is WWE ok with Cena on Raw and Reigns on Smackdown? If Cena competes for Shane at Mania, then he would have to be on Raw going forward. Does Reigns go to Smackdown which is run by his WM opponent?

[Str8Shooter]

Everyone makes a lot of sense about it being a very bad idea. And yet somehow the possibility of it still excited me

I guess that excitement would be based on how good it "could" go. Assuming that they put a bunch of effort into making "new" stars on these shows and giving us something or someone different in big positions. But all these injuries aren't the best time to do it. Not to mention what happens to the women or the tag teams? There isn't enough depth there to split them between shows.

[DBSoT]

Just for fun here is a potential roster split using currently healthy wrestlers and on air personalities:

Raw:
Shane McMahon
Brock Lesnar
Roman Reigns
Dean Ambrose
Alberto Del Rio
Rusev
Sheamus
King Barrett
Big E
Dolph Ziggler
Goldust
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
Kalisto
Kane/Demon Kane
Kofi Kingston
Mark Henry
The Miz
Neville
R-Truth
Ryback
Xavier Woods
Becky Lynch
Charlotte
Natalya
Sasha Banks
Summer Rae
Tamina
Lana
Paul Heyman
Ric Flair
Byron Saxton
John "Bradshaw" Layfield
Michael Cole
Renee Young

Smackdown:
Stephanie McMahon
Triple H
John Cena
AJ Styles
Bray Wyatt
Braun Strowman
Luke Harper
Erick Rowan
Chris Jericho
Adam Rose
Bo Dallas
Big Show
Bubba Ray Dudley
Curtis Axel
D-Von Dudley
Heath Slater
Jack Swagger
Kevin Owens
Konnor
Randy Orton
Sin Cara
Stardust
Titus O'Neil
Tyler Breeze
Viktor
Alicia Fox
Brie Bella
Naomi
Paige
Jerry Lawler
Mauro Ranallo
Rich Brennan

[Messiah]

WWE and NXT is all the brand-split that we need.