....And It's Gone

[XL]

Originally Posted by whiteyford Its why I miss the brand split, even if it just led to Smackdown getting raped every draft.

The Brand Split was the best.

[Destor]

Originally Posted by XL The Brand Split was the best.

[XL]

Genuinely.

It made more room for guys to be featured/get over, the cross-promotional matches were huge when they happened and the Draft was a high point of the year (sans SmackDown getting butt-fucked most years).

When they first did it and there was a genuine sense of "we want to be the better brand" it was the mutt's nuts. There's no "SmackDown Six" without the Brand Split.

Whether there ever needed to be 2 World Champions is another question.

[VSG]

ROFL that Ryan Clark quote was tremendous

[Evil Vito]

I'm with XL. The brand split was boss from like 2002-mid 2006 when they added ECW and complicated things a bit. I actually felt the desire to watch both shows as they both had a distinctly different feel and featured different rosters. There were guys I liked on both shows so I'd always tune in to see them.

Nowadays there is very little reason to watch SmackDown. Nothing important ever happens there. You might get a good match here and there but odds are it'll be re-run on Raw anyway.

[Evil Vito]

Thinking about it, if you include NXT guys who are probably ready for call ups there would seem to be more than enough talent on the roster to justify bringing back the split.

It won't ever happen though. WWE's reason for ending it is that "they want the content to flow through all shows". Meaning a continuous story across all shows but like I said, anything important happens on Raw.

[whiteyford]

That's the thing, Smackdown is pretty much Main Event with an extra bonus hour of Raw footage, footage they'll show on the following Mondays Raw anyway. They have all these PPVs that seem ideally suited for a brand warfare storyline from June through to the Rumble, KOTR/Bragging Rights, if nothing else it gives the midcard down something to do.

[XL]

There's definitely things they could do to improve upon the original Brand Split set up. You'd treat SmackDown more as equal to Raw, as it was originally. Hard to believe that The Rock, Angle, and Hulk Hogan were all SmackDown exclusive after the first draft. Plus, didn't HHH go to SD! On his return from injury? Edge made his name over on the Blue Brand, Benoit's stock improved, Eddie became a star over there, Mysterio was debut and was exclusive there, Brock went exclusively to Thursday's too.

It gave you an easily established "attraction match" for big PPVs if you did inter-promotional matches, I remember Benoit vs. RVD at SummerSlam 2002 being a big deal as perhaps the first SmackDown vs. Raw match.

Bragging Rights was a decent concept that could have been great if there was more than a trophy on the line. Give the winning brand preferential treatment in the Rumble, or guarantee that the next Number 1 Contender comes from the winning brand, or a free pick from the other roster.

Titles is one thing that'd have to be addressed; I'd stick with one World Champion across both shows, keep the IC and US straps, one for each show. Give them meaning and purpose, don't job out the reigning champion in endless non-title situations. I wouldn't have gone the Divas/Women's, 2 sets of Tag champions route, I'd have made the whole Divison an attraction on one show. If you enjoy tag/women's wrestling you have to watch Raw/SmackDown to see it. In fact, you could apply the 1 champ for 2 shows across divisons.

Personally, if we were doing it today, I'd go with;

Champions defending on both shows -

WWE World Heavyweight Champion
WWE Tag Team Champions

RAW

Intercontinental Championship
Diva's Championship

SMACKDOWN

United States Championship
Cruiserweight Championship


I'm gonna leave it there.

[Destor]

I feel like I should dig through this forum and bump countless threads 10+ pages long with poeple ranting about how the brand split was killing the fed. Grass is always greener i suppose.

[whiteyford]

You'd get the same thing now I think, personally the only thing I wasn't fussed about was the brand specific PPVs, I can see the logic behind it but still seemed a bit much. I enjoyed the split until it became so watered down it was only there in name most of the time.

[XL]

Originally Posted by Destor I feel like I should dig through this forum and bump countless threads 10+ pages long with poeple ranting about how the brand split was killing the fed. Grass is always greener i suppose.

I really wouldn't trouble yourself. It's only my opinion.

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

Originally Posted by whiteyford You'd get the same thing now I think, personally the only thing I wasn't fussed about was the brand specific PPVs, I can see the logic behind it but still seemed a bit much. I enjoyed the split until it became so watered down it was only there in name most of the time.

I think if they didn't try to charge full price it would have been more well received. Why pay full price for half the roster? Could have been a good way to get more buys and people interested.

It also made what was on the non-PPV brand seem kinda irrelevant for the month because they weren't close to selling a ppv.

[Emperor Smeat]

Originally Posted by whiteyford You'd get the same thing now I think, personally the only thing I wasn't fussed about was the brand specific PPVs, I can see the logic behind it but still seemed a bit much. I enjoyed the split until it became so watered down it was only there in name most of the time.

I liked the idea on paper that feuds would benefit by having an extra month's worth of build. Problem was after the first couple of ppvs, the WWE rarely used that extra time wisely and most feuds still ended with barely a few weeks worth of real build time.