WWE is seeing some of the best viewership numbers and success in recent times but the company wants to ruin all of that by having the Brand Split come back.
WWE announced another WWE Draft. These drafts usually bump the ratings and they did. Those numbers can be found on Showbuzzdaily.com. But what is the point of having a brand split when the fans know it does not matter anyway?
By this time next year, the wrestlers that got drafted to Smackdown will be on Raw and vice versa. Fans know this stuff happens all the time. Except in 2002 when the original draft happened. They did have brand exclusive PPVs right away but once they did you did not see the full until the Big 4. Smackdown and Raw had better rosters than they did back then and the competition between the shows was excellent.
Smackdown and Raw tried to one-up each other in every way possible. For example, Smackdown had a Hell in a Cell match, Raw and at the time general manager Eric Bischoff introduced the Elimination Chamber on Survivor Series. Smackdown had the “Smackdown Six.” New stars were created back then. The development was better. Now it is not so.
However, Triple H said he wants to change that. This new WWE draft will change the Game. WWE wants to go back to exclusive brand PPVs outside of the Big 5 Premium Live Events of Wrestlemania, Money in the Bank, Summerslam, Survivor Series, and the Royal Rumble. Hence why they needed a new World Championship because WWE missed the chance to put the title on Cody Rhodes at Wrestlemania.
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But back to the draft. All the new rosters will go into effect after Backlash. But what makes things worse is Raw is three hours. They do not have the talent pool to make Raw interesting for three hours without both rosters on the show. At least Smackdown is two hours. That is the advantage Smackdown has.
Another thing that makes no sense is the champions being drafted to different shows and having that stupid belt swap. That went over really well last time. Maybe they should change the names of the women’s titles as well. We will see if that happens. But there is no point in a draft now. I get needing your champion on television, but again goes back to another topic of artificially changing and modernizing the record books.
However, one thing we have seen and WWE hasn’t learned is that one roster and two shows is a good thing. So what if not everyone is on TV? Not everyone was on TV during the height of the Attitude Era. You need your hottest acts on television at all times. Hence why Raw and Smackdown are doing so well right now because the Bloodline, Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Cody Rhodes, and Seth Rollins are all on television.
Can’t split them up because it is the best storyline going. But the momentum of Wrestlemania is gone. However, the momentum can continue because of the whole story surrounding Cody Rhodes. But WWE always goes backwards instead of letting things play with what is going on.
We will see if this WWE Draft and Brand Split work out. But the past has shown it does not. And nobody cares about the Battle of the Brands either when it comes to Survivor Series. Hopefully, they don’t go down that path again.
But one thing is for sure WWE is messing up a hot product by introducing a brand split and a draft.