So about this Brand Split...

We’re now about half-a-year into WWE’s second attempt at a Brand Split, and while it may yet be too early to give a definitive review on whether or not it has (or will) succeed, enough time has passed that we can look at the product and see where improvement needs to be made. What better time than now, Survivor Series time, to do that, as WWE is putting greater emphasis on “Raw vs Smackdown” than ever before. So, looking at Raw and Smackdown, as well as Raw vs Smackdown, can we say things are better? Are things worse? Is all this just a big waste of time or is there potential for this split to usher in a new wrestling boom?

Alas, it seems the negatives are still outweighing the positives. There are positives, don’t misunderstand: Commentary is lightyears better than it was pre-split, the overall look of the shows is noticeably improved thanks to the new stages and the occasionally new camera angles. The old hands like Kane, Big Show and even John Cena have taken a step back while new talent is pushed in and around the main event. There’s a lot to celebrate, but this is the internet; let’s get to the complaining…

RAW IS STILL SIMULTANEOUSLY BLOATED AND STRETCHED THIN

With this brand split, Vince McMahon has tried to have his cake and eat it too. On the one hand he wants Smackdown and Raw to have separate rosters and storylines, in order for viewers to have good reason to tune into both shows, but on the other hand he refuses to do the one thing that is keeping Raw from gaining and retaining viewers: Cut the show to two hours. The allure of ad revenue that the third hour brings is too much to overcome and Raw, now with a third smaller roster, remains a three hour slog.

Keep in mind that the show was already a three-hour slog even before the brand split. It’s the same now as it was then, only without many of the names people might have wanted to tune in and watch. Vince tried to mitigate this by keeping the SmackDown roster small but it doesn’t matter: Raw before the brand split, with the full roster available, was still a show that felt like two hours of material stretched out over three (or more with the overrun). Because of this, time-wasting skits, backstage shenanigans and oh so many in-ring promos pepper the broadcast, designed to fill time. And it does…but that’s all it does. Vince is no longer booking Raw like it’s a show designed to gain and retain viewers. He’s basically running it for those who are guaranteed to tune in—the most die-hard loyalists—and as a result, his only concern is filling time. The trouble is, those die-hard loyalist are eventually going to get so bored that they tune out.

SMACKDOWN IS STILL UNDERFED

Without question, the blue brand has benefited tremendously from the brand split. Since the original split ended, Smackdown has been pointless and meaningless. It’s changed networks, times and airdates, but nothing WWE did made the show matter. Finally now it matters. But unfortunately, as a result of the aforementioned troubles with Raw, Smackdown is forced to play with one hand behind its back. Despite that, it has thrived and become arguably the best pro wrestling show on TV. The writing is sharp, the booking logical, the flow of the show smooth and fast-paced.

Insiders swear that Vince is just as much involved with Smackdown as he is Raw, which just boggles my mind if that’s true. The only explanation is that Raw is the show he wants it to be and so is Smackdown. He doesn’t see it as “one is watchable and fun, the other is unwatchable and boring.” He sees it as “Smackdown is the wrestling show, Raw is the sports entertainment show.” And yet Smackdown—despite its ingrained history as the B-Show—is neck and neck with Raw in the ratings and is consistently enjoyed more by viewers. Still, Vince sees Raw as the crown jewel of the company; the keystone around which the whole empire is built. Which means, as Raw continues to struggle, it’s only a matter of time before the talent on Smackdown starts getting raided. It happened before; it’ll happen again. In the meantime, Smackdown is succeeding in spite of the hand Vince dealt it. Unless something changes, the tiny roster and limited number of superstar main-eventers is going to hurt it. When that happens the show will lose viewers and the problems that plague Raw will remain, driving fans away from both shows.

TALENT IS STILL BEING MISUSED

Smackdown is doing a good job taking advantage of everyone they have access to, out of necessity more than anything since they have to fill two hours every week with a such a small roster. Raw has almost twice as many superstars and only one more hour to deal with, and yet they consistently struggle with utilizing their available talent. Some performers are spinning their wheels going nowhere, others disappear for weeks at a time, others are seen often but are in the midst of storylines that are at odds with what fans want, in terms of who they boo and who they cheer.

Case in point is the current women’s champion Charlotte. After a long run with the inaugural Women’s Championship she finally dropped the belt to Sasha Banks, much to the unbridled joy of the fans. Immediately thereafter Charlotte regained the belt, much to the consternation of the fans. This was explained away with rumors that Sasha was hurt and had to drop the belt. Okay fine, but then Sasha (quickly) returned and regained the title, much to the unbridled joy of the fans. It looked as though her temporary time away from the belt was just a hiccup…until she went and lost the belt back to Charlotte at Hell in a Cell. Now the fans aren’t even consternated, they are just bewildered and dejected. There’s a constant feeling that what Vince wants and who Vince wants to push is at odds with who the fans want to see. The brand split has given new talent a chance to be seen, but at the end of the day only a handful of people are given the spotlight, and too many of them only satisfy the audience of one.

THE SPECIFIC DIVISIONS ARE TOO SHALLOW

I wasn’t the only one, but I was one of the ones who said, as soon as the brand splits were announced, that WWE would do well to split up divisions between brands. In other words, everyone in the women’s division needed to be on one show, everyone in the tag division needed to be on the other show. Instead, WWE split the roster right down the middle, putting half the women on Raw and half on Smackdown, half the teams on Raw and half on Smackdown. This has resulted in there being only a half-dozen competitors on each show to build stories and feuds around. It’s also meant that rematches have become exhausting and repetitive since there’s not enough talent to go around to fill up matches every week. Sasha Banks addressed this problem recently, saying…

“I wrestle the same people every single week, Dana Brooke or Charlotte, Charlotte, Dana Brooke. There [are] only six of us and I think that’s the hardest part, just we need more faces on Raw.”

The same problem exists with the tag teams. New Day was already reaching critical mass before the brand split happened, and since then, there’s not as many teams to work with and the long-reigning champs have become terribly stale. The Tag division is even more sparse on Smackdown though the matches are a bit more exciting. It’s not too late to course-correct, merge the divisions and make each show a platform for one or the other, but there doesn’t seem to be any desire to do that. WWE seems to like having two women’s champs and two tag champs even if the shallow divisions are hurting the week-to-week product.

Again, the brand split was not a bad idea, and overall it hasn’t been a disaster, but there are still problems that need to be addressed. Some of them were present before the split and only seem to have gotten worse since then. Other problems have popped up as a result of the way the split was implemented, but the problems are not unfixable. All it takes is a willingness to listen to what the fans are grumbling about: Make Raw a show where “anything can happen” again, give Smackdown some of the talent that’s not being used on Raw, merge the divisions and assign them to a specific show. Along the same lines, maybe develop the first hour of Raw into a women’s-only wrestling show. That would give the first hour something different and would free up the rest of Raw (with its world title, midcard title and cruiserweight title) to be a tighter, leaner two-hour broadcast like Smackdown gets to be.

Something needs to be done, however. Because right now Raw is becoming…not just “unwatchable” but “unnecessary,” and that’s a dangerous place to be for a TV show. At the same time it’s only a matter of time before Smackdown gets gutted to try and save Raw, making both irrelevant to weekly viewers. And when that happens it’ll really be panic time at Titan Tower.

COMMENTS

Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

3 Comments

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

CISH

3 years ago

RAW being three hours isn’t Vince’s decision, it’s the USA Network’s decision. Vince has said in the past that he thinks the perfect length of a wrestling show is 90 minutes.

matthew martin

Reply to CISH

Yes he has said that but he also agreed to create a third hour of Raw. He may very well believe the show would be “better” if it was cut in half, but he cares more about the money that the three hours brings. USA offered Vince the timeslot and Vince agreed. USA didn’t make Vince lengthen Raw.

Lunacorva .

We’ve all seen how unhealthily stubborn Vince Mcmahon is. If he doesn’t want to do something, he will refuse to do it.

We’ve ALSO seen that he has a “Never my fault!” mentality. So of COURSE he’d blame it on the network instead of taking responsibility.

Cookie	Description
_pxvid	This cookie is used for detection of the browser and distinguishing whether it is a real user or malicious bot.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	This cookies is set by GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin. The cookie is used to remember the user consent for the cookies under the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Non Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	This cookie is used to keep track of which cookies the user have approved for this site.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-preferences	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Preferences".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-uncategorized	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Uncategorized".
CraftSessionId	This cookie name is associated with the Craft web content management system, where is functions as an anonymous session identifier.
csrftoken	This cookie is associated with Django web development platform for python. Used to help protect the website against Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks
DSID	To note specific user identity. Contains hashed/encrypted unique ID.
JSESSIONID	Used by sites written in JSP. General purpose platform session cookies that are used to maintain users' state across page requests.
PHPSESSID	This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
viewed_cookie_policy	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Description
b30msc
btc
CMST
cref
d
gpl
i
icts
ig_did
mdata
na_rn
na_sc_e
na_sr
na_srp
session_depth
visitor-id

Cookie	Description
__gads	This cookie is set by Google and stored under the name dounleclick.com. This cookie is used to track how many times users see a particular advert which helps in measuring the success of the campaign and calculate the revenue generated by the campaign. These cookies can only be read from the domain that it is set on so it will not track any data while browsing through another sites.
__stid	The cookie is set by ShareThis. The cookie is used for site analytics to determine the pages visited, the amount of time spent, etc.
_ga	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, camapign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assigns a randoly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_gtag_UA_60765351_1	Google uses this cookie to distinguish users.
_gid	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
ad-id	Provided by amazon-adsystem.com for tracking user actions on other websites to provide targeted content
demdex	This cookie is set under the domain demdex.net and is used by Adobe Audience Manager to help identify a unique visitor across domains.
DigiTrust.v1.identity	Registers data on visitors’ website-behaviour. This is used for internal analysis and website optimization.
dmvk	This cookie is set by DailyMotion who display videos, it registers statistical data of visitors' behaviour on the website.
gid	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
GPS	This cookie is set by Youtube and registers a unique ID for tracking users based on their geographical location
is_unique	This cookie is set by StatCounter to determine how people are using the website
is_visitor_unique	This cookie is set by StatCounter to determine how people are using the website
sc_is_visitor_unique	This cookie is set by StatCounter to determine how people are using the website
v1st	This is set by DailyMotion to display videos.

Cookie	Description
__asc	This cookie is used to collect information on consumer behavior, which is sent to Alexa Analytics.
__auc	This cookie is used to collect information on consumer behavior, which is sent to Alexa Analytics.
__qca	This cookie is associated with Quantcast and is used for collecting anonymized data to analyze log data from different websites to create reports that enables the website owners and advertisers provide ads for the appropriate audience segments.
_cc_aud	The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_cc_cc	The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_cc_dc	The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_cc_id	The cookie is set by crwdcntrl.net. The purpose of the cookie is to collect statistical information in an anonymous form about the visitors of the website. The data collected include number of visits, average time spent on the website, and the what pages have been loaded. These data are then used to segment audiences based on the geographical location, demographic, and user interest provide relevant content and for advertisers for targeted advertising.
_kuid_	The cookie is set by Krux Digital under the domain krxd.net. The cookie stores a unique ID to identify a returning user for the purpose of targeted advertising.
_px2	This cookie is set by PerimeterX who provide security analyst oversight.
_pxff_tm	This cookie is set by PerimeterX who provide security analyst oversight.
_pxhd	This cookie is set by PerimeterX who provide security analyst oversight.
ab	This cookie is generally provided by agkn.com and is used for advertising purposes.
ad-privacy	Provided by amazon-adsystem.com for tracking user actions on other websites to provide targeted content to the users.
ayl_visitor	This cookie registers data on the visitor. The information is used to optimize advertisement relevance.
bafp	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bafp_t	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bfp_sn	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bfp_sn_pl	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bfp_sn_rf_8b2087b102c9e3e5ffed1c1478ed8b78	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bfp_sn_rt_8b2087b102c9e3e5ffed1c1478ed8b78	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bfp_sn_t_8b2087b102c9e3e5ffed1c1478ed8b78	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bfp_sn_td_2d31c94105a0aa6d1ceaea0c86c6b656	This cookie is from Media.net and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
bito	This cookie is generally provided by bidr.io and is used for advertising purposes.
bitoIsSecure	This cookies are generally provided by bidr.io and is used for advertising purposes.
bsc	The cookies is set by ownerIQ for the purpose of providing relevant advertisement
CMID	This cookie is linked to advertising and tracking the products users were looking at.
CMPRO	This cookie is linked to advertising and tracking the products users were looking at.
CMPS	This cookie is linked to advertising and tracking the products users were looking at.
dc_id	This cookie is used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. They are usually placed by advertising networks with the website operator's permission. They remember that you have visited a website and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers.
did	The purpose of the cookie is to identify a visitor to serve relevant advertisement.
didts	The purpose of the cookie is to identify a visitor to serve relevant advertisement.
dpm	The cookie is set by demdex.net. This cookie assigns a unique ID to each visiting user that allows third-party advertisers target that users with relevant ads.
eud	This cookie is from Rocket Fuel and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
euds	This cookie is from Rocket Fuel and is used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.
everest_g_v2	The cookie is set under eversttech.net domain. The purpose of the cookie is to map clicks to other events on the client's website.
evo5_popin_instance	Prevents an interaction from reoccurring for visitors not accepting 3rd party cookies.
id	This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to build a profile of the website visitor's interests and show relevant ads on other sites.
IDE	Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
io.narrative.guid.v2	This cookie is generally provided by io.narrative.io and is used for advertising purposes.
KADUSERCOOKIE	This cookie is generally provided by pubmatic.com and is used for advertising purposes.
KTPCACOOKIE	This cookie is generally provided by pubmatic.com and is used for advertising purposes.
matchliveramp	This cookie is provided by w55c.net and is used for advertising purposes.
mc	This cookie is associated with Quantserve to track anonymously how a user interact with the website.
mxpim	This cookie is generally provided by mxptint.net for advertising purposes.
na_tc	This is a Social Media sharing tracking cookie.
NID	This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users.
nnls	The purpose of the cookie is to identify a visitor to serve relevant advertisement.
pxrc	The purpose of the cookie is to identify a visitor to serve relevant advertisement.
pxvid	This cookie is set by PerimeterX who provide security analyst oversight.
rlas3	The cookie is set by rlcdn.com. The cookie is used to serve relevant ads to the visitor as well as limit the time the visitor sees an and also measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

Cookie	Description
__jid	Cookies set on the website by the third-party commenting platform Disqus.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
disqus_unique	These cookies are set by Disqus so that users can comment on website/platform.
G_ENABLED_IDPS	The cookie is used by Google and is used for Google Single Sign On.
mid	The cookie is set by Instagram. The cookie is used to distinguish users and to show relevant content, for better user experience and security.
na_id	This cookie is set by Addthis.com to enable sharing of links on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
ouid	The cookie is set by Addthis which enables the content of the website to be shared across different networking and social sharing websites.
ov	This is a generic functional cookie that provides enhanced functionality and personalisation.
ts	This cookie is generally provided by PayPal and supports payment services in the website.
vuid	These cookies are used by the Vimeo video player on websites.

RAW IS STILL SIMULTANEOUSLY BLOATED AND STRETCHED THIN

SMACKDOWN IS STILL UNDERFED

TALENT IS STILL BEING MISUSED

THE SPECIFIC DIVISIONS ARE TOO SHALLOW

You might also like

FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

Recommended for you