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I just listened to this yesterday. Another great podcast, guys. Not sure if you care to read them, but I had some thoughts whilst listening:
* The idea of splitting up the nWo never occured to me, for whatever reason. The idea of Nash on RAW and Hall and Pac on SmackDown has more interest to me than it probably should. I also didn't hate the idea of the re-branding, with them officially becoming "The Kliq" on the air. The angle was pretty much losing steam right out the gate, but an evolved presenation may have helped, even if it was going to be short-lived and basically be the starting point to the Triple H/HBK program.
* I'd actually have swapped Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho around. Angle could have played well off Edge and Hulk Hogan on SmackDown ("I'm a real Real American, Hogan"), and at the time, those programs were fresher for him than ones with Austin or RVD. Not a major gripe, and it ultimately doesn't matter, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
* I also wanted to see The Undertaker on SmackDown. I think he would have been a good early foil for face Edge. It also keeps him away from Austin.
* Kane and Taker being on different brands is preferable to me. Possibly to everyone at that point.
* Raven/Kane pairing? Absolutely love it. Why not move Perry Saturn over from SmackDown as another minion of Raven's? It provides RAW with another workhorse. He could dismantle the guys like Al Snow and D'Lo Brown that you don't really have anything for.
* I like Christian being a worker on RAW. I think he should have stayed separate from Edge, so Edge being a rising star on SmackDown and Christian being a heel counterpoint on RAW is a good move, in my opinion.
* RVD as Intercontinental Champion was done for you, but it works so well. It's basically what Heyman did with RVD in ECW with the TV Title -- but RVD holding the IC Title whilst Angle dominates the World Title scene allows anticipation for that eventual clash to build.
* On the topic of RVD and who he loses the title to, how about John Cena? If you did want to play things without the gift of hindsight and don't really know much about John Cena, you'd probably talk to Jim Cornette about his pros and cons. Corny always had him picked out as your "Ric Flair-type" heel. Generic John babyface isn't something you have to go with. I can just imagine Cena showing up in Vince's office with a cheeky grin on his face, and Vince just drooling over him. "Wow! Wow! Look at you! You're such a...specimen!"
"Thank you, boss, I can't wait to get in there and show these guys a thing or two."
"You know what? I'm going to give you just that opportunity tonight. I'm going to give you Rob Van Dam. With the Intercontinental Title on the line."
*Cena thinks about this for a second*
"Good luck, son."
"With all due respect, Mr. McMahon...luck is for punks."
Cena shocks everybody and cheats to win the IC Title on his first night. Just throwing it out there.
* Liked Batista as Jericho's bodyguard. I envisioned exactly the same thing actually, but I'm not entirely against the idea of Batista basically being Goldberg'd and just destroying people in his Leviathan gimmick.
* May not be urgent, but I always wanted to see Doug Basham with his Revolution gimmick in full-flight on RAW, with Queen Victoria coming along with him.
* I kind of like Eddie and Shawn being on RAW. SmackDown is just so stacked, and it's not like you really had HBK for too many matches in there anywhere. I think there might be an ego thing with keeping him live too. Eddie and HBK is something I'd have liked to have seen down the line, and you could have built up Eddie on SmackDown, but I think he could have done some great stuff wherever he went with the right booking team.
* This makes me wonder: Since you're not really going to be running a SmackDown Six program or have a proper Cruiserweight Division, maybe Rey Mysterio doesn't need to debut on the SmackDown roster? You've got a lot of high-flying guys around there, but if the plan is to have Eddie and Rey wrestle, then maybe RAW would have been a good spot for him? Plus, even though I guess you do have Spike Dudley, Rey might stand out as "the small guy" on a show where there aren't a ton of them. I suppose that does change the context of your US Title program on SmackDown, which was beautifully laid out. Never mind me.
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