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End of split brand PPVs


Migs

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Making Cena a free agent while he's almost exclusively on Raw is another telltale sign.

 

Smackdown has been fucking DIRE these past few months but I still liked this version of the brand split as a whole. They did a lot to develop new acts and make the shows stand out at first. I don't think you get Braun, Elias, or Main Event Star AJ (as opposed to great wrestler AJ) without the split.

 

And for what it's worth, they made me into a regular Smackdown viewer for the first time in a decade. If Smackdown's current state is because they're biding time until something official happens, I guess I get it, but I'd much rather they focus on making it watchable again instead of pulling the plug on the experiment as a whole.

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I've said it before the last time they did a split, and I'll say it now: There's little chance guys like Elias or the Revival get much of a shot on TV in a non brand split world since you'll have the top guys filling most of both shows. Hell, there's probably no chance you'd have two different 3 woman groups debut if everyone's on the same roster.

 

Plus what are they going to do about their touring groups? The Smackdown guys do their swings through Mondays so they're going to have to reshuffle their lineups there as well as changing TVs/PPVs.

 

No reason for double the belts either if it's going to be the same guys on every show, this seems like a pretty significant business change.

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Yea the whole "OMG THIS MEANS THE BRAND SPLIT IS DEAD!" thing is a massive overreaction. During the last split the dual brand PPVs were around longer than split PPVs were,

 

If you want to be mad at someone, blame that fake member of the Armstrong family who had to have been dropped off at a fire station and taken home by Bullet Bob. He hasn't been able to come up with a good Smackdown PPV card on paper since after WrestleMania and frequently just repeated the same shit over and over. Raw PPVs have not been guilty of that except for maybe the tag team title matches. And even that was the result of teams getting injured (Jeff Hardy, both Revival members at different times)

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Do we know for definite if this is the end of all brand split PPVs? Or just that show in May? I know previously when they have done a draft then a show can become dual brand because of the fall out and ending some story lines but will be interesting to see.

 

Personally - and I acknowledge that this is with Smackdown falling off a cliff these last few months - I like the brand split, as it allows more people to feature than would otherwise be the case. To me, the least interesting Smackdown has ever been was during the years when they combined the brands between 2011-2016 as nothing of consequence ever happened on it.

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Personally - and I acknowledge that this is with Smackdown falling off a cliff these last few months - I like the brand split, as it allows more people to feature than would otherwise be the case. To me, the least interesting Smackdown has ever been was during the years when they combined the brands between 2011-2016 as nothing of consequence ever happened on it.

 

 

My thoughts exactly

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Worth remembering that the goal of the split was never to put Smackdown on equal footing with Raw. It was just that USA wanted WWE to improve Smackdown's ratings, and that was Vince's idea for how to do it. When they got Smackdown's ratings above where they used to be, USA was happy. And again, even if Road Dogg sucks at his job, don't blame middle management. The problems are at the top.

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Worth remembering that the goal of the split was never to put Smackdown on equal footing with Raw. It was just that USA wanted WWE to improve Smackdown's ratings, and that was Vince's idea for how to do it. When they got Smackdown's ratings above where they used to be, USA was happy. And again, even if Road Dogg sucks at his job, don't blame middle management. The problems are at the top.

I think it's way too simple to just go "well it's all Vince's fault" especially when so many people went out of their way to try and avoid giving him any credit for Smackdown being really good last year. Let's not forget how many people kept trying to say "Vince only cares about Raw, HHH is in charge of Smackdown" last year when SD was clearly the better show.

 

Now Raw is by far the better show and it's almost at 2000 Raw vs Nitro levels of disparity between Raw & SD. The biggest common denominator between Raw's low point last year & SD now is that both shows were at their lowest points when they focused large amounts of time on Kevin Owens as the lead heel. It's not ALL his fault but it's certainly a factor.

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Exclusive: WWE Considering Holding Next Draft At PPV Post-Mania

As has been reported in the last few hours, WWE recently sent out an e-mail announcing that the upcoming Backlash PPV will feature both RAW and Smackdown Live Superstars.

Twitter account @WrestleVotes then went on to report that all WWE PPVs will be duel branded following WrestleMania in order to spice up the cards.

From what WrestleZone has been told the idea for the WWE Draft returning at Backlash would be to use it as a way for WWE to jumpstart the all duel brand PPV format going forward.


As is the case with everything with WWE nothing is set in stone until it happens. The idea of holding the WWE Draft at Backlash is certainly being discussed and would seem to make sense.

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My biggest fear is that I would see the same guys every month, and would rarely see fresh talent getting the longer pay per view matches. My hope is that they would go back to 12 "pay per views" per year then, and would go back to having more non pay per view network "specials" that might showcase more undercard talent.

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It can actually help both brands. RAW is the show with the better writing, so they can have long term feuds and keep the match up fresh without doing 2-3 PPV in a row without doing it.

 

SmackDown, on the other hand, cannot build more than two feuds, so at least you get rid of the fluff they produce. Maybe it can also be better for the writing of the show.

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To be fair, Loss has always pushed the idea that Vince is the one behind every good show/run, just as he is the one to blame when shit is horrible.

 

It's not just Loss that pushes this idea, though.

 

The one thing that has cemented me on the "Vince McMahon is behind everything" theory, is listening to Something to Wrestle with...Bruce Prichard. Nobody has had more experience working with Vince, nobody has had more exposure to the WWF/WWE creative process and nobody has told more of the secrets about what goes on behind the scenes than Prichard has. If I've learned anything about the way that organization works (aside from the fact that Hogan Must Pose) it's that what Loss says is true. Nothing makes it on TV unless it has Vince McMahon's fingerprints on it somewhere. Sometimes it's minimal, sometimes it's total, but it's always true.

 

Just last night I was listening to Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru, and Cornette (another person who has experienced Vince's management style up close) was talking about the three month period in 1995 that Bill Watts worked in the WWF. Cornette claims that everybody was told that Watts was brought in to run the "wrestling" end of business to free up time for Vince to run the business end. Apparently this is not the first time Vince has been convinced to try this, in order to avoid spreading himself too thin. Vince supposedly just couldn't resist micro-managing Watts to death, to the point they both agreed to get the hell away from each other ASAP.

 

Loss is 100% correct on this theory. There are too many former talents and agents/producers who have confirmed this theory for it not to be true, in my opinion.

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WWE.com officially announced that every pay per view after Wrestlemania will be co branded by Raw and Smackdown. They announced that by doing this, we'd be getting "more of what we want". WWE also shared the updated schedule of the events that will be co branded and nixed the PPV's to only once a month.

 

Here was the announcement from WWE.com:

 

After WrestleMania, you’ll get the best of both brands – Raw and SmackDown LIVE – every month, on every pay-per-view. Catch every event streaming live on the award-winning WWE Network.

 

WrestleMania 34 – April 8, 2018

 

WWE Backlash – May 6, 2018

 

WWE Money in the Bank – June 17, 2018

 

WWE Extreme Rules – July 15, 2018

 

SummerSlam – Aug. 19, 2018

 

WWE Hell in a Cell – Sept. 16, 2018

 

WWE TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs – Oct. 21, 2018

 

Survivor Series – Nov. 18, 2018

 

WWE Clash of Champions – Dec. 16, 2018

 

According to Meltzer's latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the belief is that all of the "B" shows will be increased by one hour. This means that the PPV's will be four hours long not including the Kickoff Shows, which will be two hours long.

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