[Tom Guycott]

I don't, or have I ever, believe that the roster split in and of itself is a bad thing. The problem is they fall into the same hole of shit that they were in *beforehand*.

I can go back to when RAW was only an hour. With just that hour, it was treated more like your average NXT show now. You only had one hour, so your time was at a premium, and you got in what you needed to get in. You might also get 3-4 matches a night. If it overran, who gave a fuck? You're just pre-empting Silk Stalkings.

Then, they would do occasional 2 hour specials. That meant 6-8 matches, possibly with some sort of mega main event that might be considered PPV caliber.

When RAW went two hours and stayed there, it slowly weaned from the 6-8 matches per show back down to about the 3-4 area it was at one hour. Not even going into the extra eventual padding with more commercials, but shows became less about exposure of more people, and more about repeated exposure of the same people.

Smackdown comes along, and added another prime time outlet for the underutilized... until it too became an extention of RAW. From the period where it was just an extention of what happened Monday night, to the times where they'd spend half the damn (one hour) show replaying what happened Monday night.

Everytime they would grow, it would eventually be overtaken with bloat and repetition.

At least by splitting the roster, the whole show can't be dominated by something like "the HHH reign of terror" (a 20 min diatribe to open the show, 3 backstage segments, and also be involved in the main event, every show, ad nauseum).

Now, with a whole section of roster gated off, and a whole show dedicated to just that talent, what do they do? Exactly the same thing, and maybe one or two people benefit from the extra breathing room. Maybe. And the writers can only seem to focus on so many talents and/or angles at a time (maybe about 3 or 4 total of both in any combination). Instead of trying to create a situation for more, different, or newer talent for the audience to care about, the focus is on how they can keep the attention on the ones people already like now at the expense of trying to get new people over and make them interesting. That is, until another swath of injury, retirements, walkouts, or even disease makes focus shifting a priority. Instead of having the cards in place, they go into panic mode because they didn't bother trying to build for the future.

For example, I get that Shane McMahon is power feuding with Daniel Bryan over what to do with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, and keep putting AJ Styles, the champion, in the middle of that. That is the main story they are telling. Gotcha. You don't have to put so much emphasis on it. It doesn't have to be a weekly thing. There could certainly be another talent, or angle, or idea that can be presented a couple of those weeks? Same five people involved in the same one angle week after week after week. Even *if* the endgame *is* the "best case scenario" and it is leading to an in-ring return for D-Bry, it is too much too much. Oh, and Shinsuke and Randy Orton is kinda there... popular, but no focus. Usos cut an awesome promo, New Day does some skit, and Gable & Shelton (rightfully) bitch about a lackluster tag divison, Charlotte has a belt, and people like Bobby Roode's song. Now tell me, which specific week of Smackdown did I just sum up?

Jump back to NXT for a moment. Everyone talks about how awesome Lars Sullivan is. Is he on every week though? No. The tag team scene is pretty heated, but they don't even SHOW a tag match every week, let alone the champions. The NXT Champion doesn't need to close every show in one way or another.

The roster split isn't a problem at all. Mishandling of the roster at large is.