BREAKING NEWS: Brand Split Returning
 

http://www.wwe.com/shows/smackdown/a...9?sf26901815=1

Woooooooooooooooooooooooow.

I'm fine with this.

I like Smackdown going live but don't think they need another brand split. Hope they keep 1 title to.

they will have 1 title... for now.... and then in a couple years they will split them up, like before,

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Fuck, I don't want a brand split.

There's so much talent again that this makes sense, just like it made sense to end it when there was a huge lack of talent depth under Big Johnny.

Just hate the whole idea of a brand split. It's not like Smackdown is going to gain anything from long term. Feel like it will hurt this great roster as well. I'd be fine with it if Smackdown became a whole separate promotion all together and had nothing to do with Raw. I'll wait and see but I'm not a big fan of splitting up this roster.

Smackdown going live is nifty.

We agree on something at last!

Should let one of the shows be the "workrate" brand for my fellow neckbeards and I. Would be plzd as punch tbh

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/WWE">@WWE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/StephMcMahon">@StephMcMahon</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shanemcmahon">@shanemcmahon</a> theres only 1 man for the job, right <a href="https://twitter.com/Daddy_Michelin">@Daddy_Michelin</a> ? <a href="https://t.co/zdn5JSM8zW">pic.twitter.com/zdn5JSM8zW</a></p>&mdash; Darryl Owen (@KuroShadowLFC) <a href="https://twitter.com/KuroShadowLFC/status/735458360028463104">May 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
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I like LIVE smackdown. that way we don't read the spoilers and then choose not to watch.

Yes a live Smackdown! is a great plan

so will tna stay on tues nights or will they move again

Why not live in Thursday? Seems dumb to have it live on Tuesday.

I do agree with Simple Fan, but at the same time, there's so many talented guys that never get used, or flounder, or come and go so often it's hard to care. A roster split might give them all a chance to actually get some TV time again.

Probably move again. I'd say back to Wednesday

The only real detriment I can think of right now, is the inevitable stigma of Smackdown being the "B show" again.

I am all for this. Please get Paul Heyman in charge again, it's not like Brock does much the whole year long.

Cody could have flourished again on SmackDown.

Reckon they'll get an NXT pick in the draft?

Not only will there be an NXT pick, I expect that roster is getting plunger raped in this thing.

Raw is 3 hours long. And it drags badly. Take half the crew away and you're looking at a 20 minute Darren Young match every week.

Going live should be good.

I didn't like the brand split the first time around when they had enough talent for the split. Why would I like it now when there is less top end talent? Are we going to go back to 2 world champions? Smackdown will continue to be the B show and Nxt will continue to be the developmental league, so really, what is the point?

Triple H finally gonna work on Tuesday?!

I like the brand split returning, my only reservation about it is that instead of choosing someone actually suited to the job, either Shane or Steph will get the GM role and the other will remain on RAW.

Would be pleasantly surprised though if they could get Long or maybe Kurt "Mr." Angle or hell, it'd really be a coup (and I know this is a HUGE reach), but what if they could get Bischoff to come back snd try his hand at running WWE's "blue brand"?

R.i.p tag teams though?

Got a feeling the "champions can be on both shows" rule will come back.

Please note that nowhere does this announcement say that the brand split is returning. It very well could happen, but for now they are just saying that it is going live.

#ShutItDown

Attempting to pump some life into a tired product would be an understatement. :nono:

And 5 hours of "wrasslin", or more like 3 hours of gum flapping and 2 hours of "sports entertainment" inside 2 days is retarded, people already think raw is too long at 3 hours.

9 once you count nxt and ppvs then 11 on takeover months

I love the dripping Irony of Zach Ryder fans being against a change that will allow him more TV time.

This is a great move. It frees up smackdown to stop being a holder program for the same 10 people and 5 angles that are run on raw, and opens up the under card.

I understand that some dont like the break as it limits certain people from working together, but there are ways around it. they can kayfabe find ways to move gys between shows if they want to start a program.

I think RAW should go back down to 2 hours, especially if they are going to have half the roster to fill it with.

A brand split is a good idea in theory, that will allow guys to get over who would otherwise never get that chance.

Worried that even with Smackdown going live, though, that it will quickly revert to being treated as the B-Brand that builds up superstars before they get traded to RAW, RAW squanders them and messes them up bad, and then ships them back to Smackdown after no one cares about them anymore.

I dont agree at all. The roster is way deeper with quality characters and workers now.

NXT is churning out talent faster t han they can handle.

Go back to 2004.

is rene Dupree and Kenzo Suzuki vs the FBI anywhere near as good and Neville/Crews vs Primo and Epico?

The talent is deeper than ever....

Ill admit the star power is lower, but thats because they have buried talent for 10 years and stayed stagnant.

This is a chance to break out again.

Without the original Brand split, John Cena would have never had a shot. He was able to rise up behind Taker, Brock, Angle, Edge, Eddie, Rey, Big Show - but had HBK, HHH, Jericho, Christian, Kane, Orton, Batisita, Goldberg all been on the same show he would have been squeezed out.

There was alot of problems with the old split, but its biggest strength was allowing a chance for more talent to get on TV.

The roster was way thinner in the middle and bottom then, and that wont be a problem now.

I wonder if they decide to do this because talent was unhappy and started leaving.

All champions should be on both shows. Their tag division sucks so I hope they don't break any teams up. The only good I could see from this is NXT getting raided for Smackdown. Joe, Nakamura, Aries, and Balor are all to good for NXT and could come up to Smackdown. See Ambrose and Styles as Smackdown guys as well.

The only way people will get over is important matches in good programs on television. This splits up shows so that more people will have to be featured who would normally either not work that night or have a meaningless Dark match, superstars or main event which only people watch if they forget to turn off a live stream of wwe network after watching something good.

Roster is deep. You evelvate talent so it's not the same tired matchups. In wrestling it's alot to to with how you present your talent not really about the talent of the superstar. With the right set up you can elevate mid to main. This is the right way to go.

Workrate Wednesday right after NXT!

Because then the wrestlers don't have to travel 2 separate times a week?

They should have the WHC, the Tag Titles, and the Women's title float between shows. Make the US and IC exclusive to a brand.

So would tag teams and women float between shows too?

Yes! I love when they do drafts!

With them announcing the Cruiserweight Classic is for a title I could see them binging back the Cruiserweight Championship and have it be a Smackdown title.

Recently watched all the old drafts (excluding the month long 2006 draft after the inintial Cena move), great stuff.

Whilst I have reservations over the split, I'm looking forward to the actual draft.

LOL it only took a few months last time.

The IC title should be the crown jewel of Smackdown. The current spoilers show how this can be done.

AJ Styles vs Randy Orton for the Smackdown title by the end of the year.

Oh my lord. 3 hours on Monday and 2 on Tuesday. That is a TON of wrestling.

I wish that WWE would make the US and IC titles a permanent fixture of Raw or Smackdown, and then float the Tag, Women's, and World Heavyweight every week.

It really is. PPV weekends will give me three hours to watch on a Monday, around 2 hours 15 minutes for Tuesday, and a further 1.5 hours on Wednesday. Plus NXT on Thursday.

To be fair, I haven't watched SD for months, the fact that SmackDown is going live, and featuring exclusive guys has piqued my interest, so kudos to WWE for that.

I am so fucking psyched for this.

I just hope that both rosters have their separate belts. There is no way a wrestler like Dean Ambrose or Dolph Ziggler will have the chance to become champion on RAW.

Problem with 2 belts is one gets deluded and labeled as a second tier title. That's what happened last time.

It happened after the brand extension rules were relaxed. I distinctly remember many PPV main events with the championship associated with Smackdown on the line.

I hope they don't try to do seperate PPVs at least until they've established strong and deep rosters. They've got a lot of work to do to revive a bunch of people. The solo PPVs "back in the day" often felt really lightweight at times.

Feels like Smackdown is going to end up being treated the same as usual after a while except now its going to cost the WWE more money to do the shows since it would be live. Wouldn't be surprised if the USA Network is helping covering costs or threw in some incentives to make this happen now.

Injury crisis or not, the roster is deep enough in quality to make a brand split work and in theory more people should benefit but don't see the WWE being that committed in the long term for Samckdown's benefit.

My initial reaction is to be very much against this idea.

We are only just beginning to rebuild the WWE roster and solidify characters as "superstars." But it's going to take more time before we have the kind of roster depth of quality that we had when the first brand split occurred. By separating the roster, I fear that the product as a whole will lose the momentum that they were just starting to rebuild.

My point I guess is just this: the WWE struggles on a weekly basis to put out one quality product per week, with a mediocre step-child being produced as a far second. I don't have faith in them to be able to properly produce TWO quality products per week.


On the other hand, I also have a strong feeling that there is more to this sudden announcement and idea than meets the eye. If the rumors of dissension backstage are true, perhaps Shane McMahon will be given one show, and Stephanie/Triple H will be given the other show, in the ultimate battle to see who will take over the WWE when Vince dies. That, and he probably just gets off on watching his kids fight over his legacy.

I'm sure there's lots to the decision.

I'm already infinitely more interested in SD than I have in months. Same for a bunch of people I would imagine.

Whilst the rosters aren't all that deep right now they do have Cena, Orton, Wyatt, Harper, Rowan, Strowman, Neville, Alicia Fox, Emma, Naomi, Nikki Bella, Sasha, Tamina, Big Show, Henry, Kane, Konnor, and Ryback (maybe) waiting in the wings.

Plus there are over 40 superstars on the NXT roster currently, and the "development brand" is becoming increasingly "top heavy", especially with guys on contracts better than the usual development rate; at some point WWE will want to cash-in on the likes of Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, Austin Aries, etc.

This sounds intriguing, but like everyone else, I'm concerned that they'll just botch it, based on past results.


They can't even handle however many storylines they currently have across RAW and SD. Now they have to double that. Unless they're hiring more writers, I feel like they'll just have more filler and nowhere near double the storylines.

Hope they don't have separate PPVs. Feel like the PPvs should be more of a super show with both rosters.

They could have a network special for the show that doesn't get a PPV that month to make it all relevant. There was nothing worse than having nothing doing for a month on either Raw and Smackdown when the other brand had a PPV on the way.

It could go either way. They aren't in the era of 40 dollar per ppvs. Separate PPVs was a tough sell in that sense.

I actually like them having their own ppvs. It gives feuds a longer time to burn and the big 4 can be the Superbowl shows.

Imagine Cena avid Owens having the same feud but spreading the 3 matches out over 6 months instead of 3 due to having to wait an extra month.

I agree that it'll take time to build up the shows to that point so maybe you don't have brand exclusive shows until after the Rumble or even Mania.

According to the Observer, TNA is going to end up as the biggest loser with this decision since Impact will end up going head-to-head against Smackdown for at least 1 hour on Tuesdays.

They have no leverage to move while every other day possible in the week won't really improve things or already has tough competition guaranteed.

Also according to the Observer, WWE is currently preparing another major talent raid to help fill out the rosters, NXT itself might be ending as a unique brand due to the mass callups planned to be happening, World (Big Gold Belt) is likely coming back, and a safe bet Reigns and Cena will be the main stars of each brand.

In terms of wrestlers possibly getting more time off now that the rosters would be split, Observer hinted the opposite might happen with more house shows being planned to happen.

Excited for the return of the WWE Draft.

I'd be more than happy, if live coverage on TV isn't done, to provide such here in up-to-the-second updates, or just throw up something for those who don't catch it on TV, and if there's a supplemental online bit, I could include that as well, if demand for such merits it.

Will go down exactly the same as before.

Interesting, might actually start watching Smackdown again. There should only be one Heavyweight title though.

make smackdown into WCW NITRO - have bischoff run it. HE could feud with flair for power then the NWO can do a run in...er....walk in...er..limp in..erm...phone it in like they used to do

That was the initial idea behind the initial brand split the first time... the problem became the idea of "we need to feature the popular people everywhere!" instead of getting exposure to the underexposed, so it just became the same as it ever was and defeated the purpose of splitting the roster.

Same idea as having what is now 3 hours of RAW as opposed to the one hour it started at a couple decades ago. You'd think there'd be whole matches of underutilized talent, but instead, it is 8 segments of the main featured storyline instead of only 5 from a 2 hour RAW, and a shit ton of commercials to finish padding the time.

Basically, this is a great idea until it eventually and inevitably breaks down again. The question is how soon.

You had me until you started with the stuff that was all done leading up to the original split.

I'm pretty excited for this. If Smackdown is getting more of a focus and a more prominent position on TV I hope that makes enough money to be able to cut Raw down to two hours.

I'd like Raw to have a focus on the US & Women's championship, with Smackdown being the place for the tag titles, a returning Cruiserweight division and led by the Intercontinental championship. I'd also like to see the Royal Rumble, Summerslam and Wrestlemania as the only cross-brand mega shows, with the other PPV's being for a particular brand and more network exclusives.

I've got a feeling Bray Wyatt will benefit massively from this.

No no no no. We are finally getting back into a position where everyone is not a forner WWE or World champ. Keep it to 1 title where it actually means something if you won it at some point.

Ugh.. Don't kill NXT for this.

What does that mean!?

This, 1000x this. Not everyone is world champion material. In fact, there should only be maybe 10-12 guys max (probably less actually) at that main event world champ level. Just enough guys to have varying world title feuds, #1 contender feuds and upper card "blood" main event feuds of guys who can easily move from upper card semi-main to main event.

This is also true. The idea that the brand split will improve or make the writing and under performing talent better is an illogical fallacy.

Completely agree. Guys like Swagger and Ziggler are former champs, these guys are not main eventers and never were yet somehow they have world championships. There should be one title and the champ goes to both shows. Use the US and IC titles as the brand championships, that not only elevates those titles but keeps people away from the real championship. If they really feel the need for a lower card title bring back the Euro and Tv or Cruiserweigt titles. Two world championships not only sounds stupid, but it dilutes the top stars.

Possibly no more live specials or ppvs in general. Being rumored they are dropping NXT house shows after mid-June.

Also rumored to be going back as a pure developmental thing like it was before it got huge. TV/Network wise, still will be shown till at least the current tv contracts end.

Probably going to raid the NXT roster so NXT is truly a developmental promotion. I'm fine with it as I think most the top guys in NXT don't belong there.

Noooooooooooooo

NXT was the best wrestling experience on my life as a fan in Dallas for WM weekend. It's so much better than RAW/Smackdown often. Nooooooooooooo

Brand split is an awesome idea. Just keep one champion though, for fuck's sake.

World champ goes between brands, IC Title signifies Raw supremacy, US Title signifies Smackdown supremacy. All is well. No need for this two world title BS.

No more live specials or PPVs? I assume that doesn't include the big 4.

Think that's only NXT. HHH had cryptic tweet saying the next Takeover might be it's last.

Oh. Didn't read the post that was in response to.

Well in that case, I hope they don't do two specials a month to cover both brands now. Having to stretch feuds for 2 months instead of running through everything as quickly as possible would serve them well.

I heard they have 12 writers now, six for each brand is enough. This will help the story because instead of having to produce 5 hours of a story each week you only have to produce 2 or 3.

Imagine having to write a Game of thrones episode that was 5 hours each week.

That's great in theory sure. It doesn't guarantee an improvement in quality though for either or both shows, just that one show MIGHT be better than the other.

Not to mention the fact that one show (cough, Raw, cough, cough) will always be seen as the "premier" show by most people, including fans, talent, Vince, office, backstage, etc. Even if Smackdown actually ends up being better than Raw in quality content, Raw's been around longer, has the more established brand, is more iconic, etc. A brand split isn't going to change that, let alone all the other flaws in WWE's writing, creative, booking, production, content, etc. This is just a way for Vince and everyone to feel better about the product and distract the fans from the fact that nothings really going to change or improve. Same company, same folks in charge, more of the same.

They might book SD! Stronger during Football season.

Not a bad idea.

RAW could have Sting as GM, hell bent on sabotaging Seth Rollins(for ending his career) and his quest for getting the Championship he never lost. It would allow Roman to be a full fledged heel and earn his keep with the fans.

GM Sting ONLY!

The problem with keeping the one title is that the champion (Roman Reigns) will be a focus on both shows..... likely a segment and a match on Raw, then likely the same on Smackdown.... Better to have that second title to keep Reigns confined to Raw, and it can make being drafted to Smackdown more important as lesser talent can say "I want to get drafted to Smackdown, so I can enter the battle royal/tournament/clusterfuck match to become the new champion"

And NXT should be left as is, minus the likes of Roode/Aries/Joe/Balor/etc. to be drafted up to the main roster.....

Might just be acknowledging that after they take all the top talent from NXT it isn't going to be the same product. So it will probably take a step back for awhile until they start building up a bunch of new guys again. Will probably resemble early days of the brand.

Im sure its been mentioned or complained about by someone within the pages of this thread but I don't have time to read all of your garbage (prounced Gar-bodge)

I"m excited for it but I really hate that it is Tuesdays because of the 3 hour Raw the night before I don't know if I could do 2 more hours the next day and then 1 hour the following day for NXT...it's a lot for the aging fan to digest.

It'll be fun for a while though.

I think i might just skip Raw honestly, especially if roman is on it.

I'll wait and see which roster gets which guys and check out both for a little while before deciding which to skip...but it's bound to be one of them.....

Hoping to god we get another "smackdown 6" type situation.....