The brand split is back: Official Draft thread!

thebostoncrab

http://www.wwe.com/shows/smackdown/article/smackdown-live-usa-network-july-19?sf26901739=1

So folks, after months of rumours, the brand split is back from July 19th. Not only that, but Smackdown is moving to Tuesdays and will be live.

What are everyone's thoughts and what way would you shape the rosters? Should each show have their own world champion or should the champ be on both?

Lord TSC

My first instinct is this is great news. The roster is diverse, and if it means Reigns can be seperated off from other talent, ****ing awesome. Let him have his Raw, let me have my Kevin Owens led Smackdown.

My only real surprise is that THIS is how they announced it. I thought the obvious idea would be to build to it in a story with Shane vs Steph

seandotcomm

pretty awful way to announce it to be honest.
And trying to big it up in that video by having them arguing over who gets to control the "B" show is a bit of a stretch.

Still though.. should be interesting... I havent watched Smackdown in years

Loughc

Reigns will be on both as having two champions won't make Reigns look strong. Reigns needs to look strong which is why WWE is replacing NXT with the Roman Reigns Power hour featuring the Usos.

PTH2009

bit 50/50 on it tbh

im going to Raw and SD tapings in Glasgow in November but im a bit annoyed that raw will not be 3 hours anymore

Lord TSC

I'd imagine NXT is about to get absolutely destroyed...

A Rogue Hobo

Not a fan to be honest. Limits feud variety, and we've seen "brand A vs brand b" storylines done to death in WWE. First one didn't work, this one won't either.

KingJamsie

Buzzing about this. Smackdown has been so poor for god knows how long. The days of Taker/Edge/Batista signed to just that brand gave me some of my favourite SD! moments. Bring on the draft!

Loughc

I do hope they have an exclusive draft show on the network and make it seem like a big deal. It'd be good use of the network as well.

And in fairness it breathes new life into Smackdown rather than making it a Raw light.

sky88

I think it needed this badly iv barley watched eithier show in so long.

I think this is needed for smackdown especally. plus i always loved the draft episodes.

paulie21

PTH2009 wrote:

im going to Raw and SD tapings in Glasgow in November but im a bit annoyed that raw will not be 3 hours anymore

Is Raw going back to 2 hours as well

Agent Coulson

So will Finn get his call up at last now I wonder.

PTH2009

so what about the MITB winner and world champ sanario ???

Superstars and main event to be scrapped too ??

briany

Hopefully it'll be great and they'll show it on Sky 1 on Saturday mornings, like back in the old days.

Please make different sets as well. At least have different coloured ropes for both shows, or some sort of different scheme around the set.

ShagNastii

I'd say Raw will be as it is with all the big names where Smackdown will go full scale wrasslin'.

PTH2009

ShagNastii wrote: »

I'd say Raw will be as it is with all the big names where Smackdown will go full scale wrasslin'.

Aj styles reminds me of a smack down guy

Hopefully call ups galore come draft time

Samoa Joe

This is probably really bad news for NXT. Serious brain drain on a weakish roster.

mullyboyee

I reckon they're gonna spread themselves too thin with this. Each brand could get very repetitive quite quickly.

Bounty Hunter

Unless there is something more to it I don't see Raw reverting to 2hrs being mentioned anywhere.


I really like this but partially just because it is big change and the WWE really needs a shake up. It also gives proper distinction to the "New Era" a term they are mentioning just as much as they did the dang "Diva's revolution" even though so far very little has changed guarantees except a handfull of NXT call ups. This should also mean that there will be more of those NXT guys coming, at the very least Finn will join up with Anderson and Gallows and be a big thing feuding with AJ on one of the brands (probably SD). Similarly it means that some people who aren't really doing anything might actually get storylines now like Apollo Crews who was probably just in a holding pattern until this was announced. Maybe Bayley will get called up too considering they will probably want good women on both brands capable of challenging / potentially holding the Womens title.

I would assume that Steph will run one and Shane the other plus that the WHC, Womens and Tag champs will probably appear on both. The IC and US titles I would not be surprised if they made brand specific.

PTH2009

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

Unless there is something more to it I don't see Raw reverting to 2hrs being mentioned anywhere.


I really like this but partially just because it is big change and the WWE really needs a shake up. It also gives proper distinction to the "New Era" a term they are mentioning just as much as they did the dang "Diva's revolution" even though so far very little has changed guarantees except a handfull of NXT call ups. This should also mean that there will be more of those NXT guys coming, at the very least Finn will join up with Anderson and Gallows and be a big thing feuding with AJ on one of the brands (probably SD). Similarly it means that some people who aren't really doing anything might actually get storylines now like Apollo Crews who was probably just in a holding pattern until this was announced. Maybe Bayley will get called up too considering they will probably want good women on both brands capable of challenging / potentially holding the Womens title.

I would assume that Steph will run one and Shane the other plus that the WHC, Womens and Tag champs will probably appear on both. The IC and US titles I would not be surprised if they made brand specific.

Triple h to Co manage raw with Steph and Shane for SD

So at survivor series we will have the cross brand 12 man tag

The Rumble will be 15 raw and 15 SD guys

Intercon and us titles will be exclusives to one brand each

Maybe 2 different tag titles and women's titles

Would love Raw to be non pg and SD pg

Xenji

Never was a fan of the original brand split, and have not watched an episode of Smackdown in about 15 years.

Bounty Hunter

NXT is supposed to be a developmental brand anyway so I have no issue with them being somewhat raided although I wouldn't be surprised if they still have a few marquee names like Joe (surely the champ will stay for a while), Nakamura, Aries, Itami, Asuka etc plus then they have people like Athena coming through. I'd have no problem with Nakamura and Joe coming up but for some reason im not expecting it just yet. Maybe They will call up Carmella too, put her back with Enzo & Cass


I'm imagining rosters like this:

SD: Bayley, Finn Balor, Drew Gallows, Karl Anderson, AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Neville, Kevin Owens, Dolph Ziggler, Becky Lynch, Sheamus, Tyler Breeze & Fandango, Epico & Primo, Sin Cara, Baron Corbin, Alberto Del Rio, Paige, Natalya, Mark Henry, Summer Rae, Alicia Fox, Emma, Darren Young, Kane, Jack Swagger

Raw: Seth Rollins, Sasha, Roman Reigns, The Usos, John Cena, Dean Ambrose, Rusev & Lana, Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper & Erick Rowan, Braun Strowman, Cesaro, Apollo Crews, The Miz & Maryse, Sami Zayn, R-Truth & Goldust, Kalisto, Enzo & Big Cass w/ Carmella, The Vaudvillans, The Dudleys, Dana Brooke, Naomi, Tamina, Alexa Bliss, Big Show, Heath Slater/Bo Dallas/Curtis Axel, Nikki Bella, Titus O Neil,


Roman Reigns, Charlotte, Big E, Kofi & Xavier on all shows until they drop their title

Ryback could still return to either roster
Brock / Jericho etc on Raw most likely when they show up for a short stint as it'll always be the main show

gimmick

The brand split failed last time out and I cannot see how it can succeed the 2nd time. Im not sure the roster has enough bodies to fill 2 seperate shows either.

Its lazy booking of the highest order is all it is.

"How do we get Owens/Cesaro/Ambrose etc over without making Reigns look weak?"

"Eureka, we will have a different show where a belt will be passed around, while Roman will reign supreme over the other, then everyone is happy"

Im sure we will be promised the US Title and IC and tag titles will become very relevant again with the split, when in fact they will get lost in the shuffle (maybe not the IC) still. Then in about October we will have fellas crossing brands again and by Christmas the whole "split" will mean precisely nothing again.

/bah
#humbug

CSF

There are obvious pros and obvious cons. If they went in the direction of having one Reigns-heavy show with the ****e we currently watch and turned Smackdown into the show we've been calling out for that would be amazing. Of course, that almost definitely is not what is going to happen.

gimmick

Isn't that exactly what happened 14 years ago? Raw was the HHH show while SD had the Smackdown 6 tear sh*t up.

CSF

gimmick wrote: »

Isn't that exactly what happened 14 years ago? Raw was the HHH show while SD had the Smackdown 6 tear sh*t up.

A lot has changed in 14 years though. That 'era' came pretty much directly from an era that gave the fans exactly what they wanted so this didn't represent a drastic change. This would represent a very dramatic change.

LightsStillOn

AJ, Finn, Nakamura, Sami, Owens, Cesaro, Joe, Neville, Breeze, Hideo. If they could throw these 10 lads together on Smackdown along with some of the better tag teams you'd have one of the best wrestling shows anywhere. Slim chance of it happening, but looking forward to seeing what they come up with all the same!

Bounty Hunter

One thing about this I fear though is WWE burnout for people like me. SD will be on Tuesdays and Live so 5 hrs of WWE in 2 days, 8hrs in 3 days if there is a PPV that week and thats before even thinking about how Wednesday is when NXT airs

CSF

LightsStillOn wrote: »

AJ, Finn, Nakamura, Sami, Owens, Cesaro, Joe, Neville, Breeze, Hideo. If they could throw these 10 lads together on Smackdown along with some of the better tag teams you'd have one of the best wrestling shows anywhere. Slim chance of it happening, but looking forward to seeing what they come up with all the same!

People like the Wyatts, Anbrose and Enzo and Cass aruguablg need the move most of all. People who Vince is never gonna be able to write for effectively and will almost certainly end up lost in the shuffle because Vince has no idea how to deal with gimmicks in this era.

CSF

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

One thing about this I fear though is WWE burnout for people like me. SD will be on Tuesdays and Live so 5 hrs of WWE in 2 days, 8hrs in 3 days if there is a PPV that week and thats before even thinking about how Wednesday is when NXT airs

If they're not relying on the same roster for both shows would having Smackdown live on the day it's broadcast not be an option?

Bounty Hunter

CSF wrote: »

If they're not relying on the same roster for both shows would having Smackdown live on the day it's broadcast not be an option?

dunno about options but it's being reported as moving to live on Tuesdays and im sure its probably for financial reasons with for example them reusing their live TV set up from Raw the night before

CSF

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

dunno about options but it's being reported as moving to live on Tuesdays and im sure its probably for financial reasons with for example them reusing their live TV set up from Raw the night before

True. 3 nights in a row on PPV weeks will definitely be overkill.

Bounty Hunter

CSF wrote: »

True. 3 nights in a row on PPV weeks will definitely be overkill.

effectively means I won't be watching any PPV pre shows and I don't know if I would bother with NXT outside of if I hear about a great match (like Nakamura vs Joe etc) or takeovers of course. Simply too much WWE although at least with a brand split it wouldn't be the same guys on each shows

martyos121

The news I've been waiting years for, maybe I'm looking back on the old brand split with rose tinted glasses but I simply enjoyed watching WWE programming a lot more in those days, whether that's coincidence or not.

He main thing is sorting the writers out though. If they don't revamp the writing team for at least one show this will end in disaster. Do they not understand the concept of a well-written show getting higher ratings? I'd love to see Heyman running Smackdown again but I don't think he or WWE wants that anymore unfortunately.

DM_7

The brand split is needed.

Yes they had before and no it wasn't a roaring success. However, removing the brand split has also caused a lot of problems.

It has overexposed a lot of talent and put a lot of good talent into low or mid card spots on RAW. It has also forced them to speed up storylines and kill anticipation for what happens next.

A company this size should be able to run two rosters and do it well. The smaller roster over two shows is unnecessarily difficult.

When you see WWE's revenue and how much of it comes from TV (35%), despite the trend for people to watch on demand or online, it is a very smart decision to make Smackdown an important show again.

Chain Smoker

DM_7 wrote: »

When you see WWE's revenue and how much of it comes from TV (35%), despite the trend for people to watch on demand or online, it is a very smart decision to make Smackdown an important show again.

Bet it was USA's move to be honest. WWE is propping up their ratings right now and I can imagine they're looking at how half assed Smackdown typically it and wondering how much better it might do if it had some kind of importance placed on it.

Itssoeasy

I think a big difference with this brand split will be the fact that smackdown will be live.

I hope that USA were behind this move and wanted a live show which mean WWE will have to make an effort.

I might actually watch smackdown now as for god knows how long I've read the spoilers on Wednesday and Thursday and never watched the actual show.

badgersbelief

wonder how this brand split will effect championships, will they have to split them or will champions work both brands? another interesting thing to see is if features will change such as the rope colours and stage set up.

Monokne

Wade Keller & Dave Meltzer have both released audio updates on this in the past hour.

Meltzer appears to have little info and mostly just speculated, although he did mention that the people he has talked to all insisted there will be two world champions.

Keller - who has been hinting this was coming for a while - says the germ of the idea to do this is the feeling within the company that they have two separate audiences now - the one which hates Roman Reigns and values the guys who can go in the ring like Zayn, Styles, Cesaro, Owens etc. This audience wants a product that is thematically more serious. On the flip side they believe their is the audience that reacts strong to comedy like the New Day, wacky sh*t like the Wyatts, silly acts like Miz etc. Vince first accepted this reality when he was at NXT Brooklyn last August.

The idea is to serve both audiences separately. Smackdown will be closer in feel & vibe to NXT whereas Raw will more heavily be moulded in Vince's image. There is the plan to keep elements of each on both shows as (obviously) their goal is not to split the audience in half and have 1.5 million viewers for each show. They just believe they can draw more at the houses, and merchandise talent better if said talent can be booked to their strengths. So AJ can be a wrestler focused on winning the world title, while Bray can be over on the other show eating worlds (or whatever the bollocks he pedals is).

I see people jumping to conclusions on either side but it's not a black and white issue. There were problems with the last split, but let's not forget the Smackdown six era, for example. We would have never seen Eddie Guerrero or Chris Benoit as world champions were it not for the opportunity afforded them by a split roster. There were many positives. However the negatives were whenever Vince needed a quick fix, guys would jump shows and the whole thing became so ****ing watered down it was absurd.

My personal take is we should all wait and see what happens. If Paul has more influence now and he and Ward are allowed build Smackdown, I see this as a huge positive. If Vince can't help himself (very possible) then maybe not.

Also, both Keller and Meltzer mentioned the company would be aggressively pursuing talent. Anyone who has seen the way Triple H has built NXT who thinks he'll be happy to see it raided and try and run big towns with The Drifter V Murphy in the main events is out to lunch on this. He understands the audience he is serving.

Imnotthehulk

I'm delighted to see the return of the brand split.

The original brand split worked when the brands were kept separate and were able to develop their own identities. When WWE blurred the lines and workers appeared on both shows, or moved from one to the other seemingly at a whim, that is when the split really started to fall apart.

Hopefully WWE will have learned some lessons from the success of NXT, and will have better plans in place for the future of each brand.

LeeJM

Dear New Japan fans,

Enjoy Okada while you can. That new contract still isnt signed.

Love,
HHH

chopperbyrne

It'd be nice to see the IC, Tag and maybe Womens belts on SD.

What would be even better is if Smackdown contained no mention of RAW at all.

Just treat it like it doesn't exist and only SD is important.

Pinkman

This could work if handled correctly but they will probably just have Reigns burying talent on Raw and Cena burying talent on Smackdown. Ideally though Rollins would be the champ on Smackdown feuding with the likes of Cesaro, Styles, Owens, Zayn etc and Reigns and Cena can stay on Raw, along with Big Show, Kane, Orton and more of Vince's faves.

Chain Smoker

Monokne wrote: »

Also, both Keller and Meltzer mentioned the company would be aggressively pursuing talent. Anyone who has seen the way Triple H has built NXT who thinks he'll be happy to see it raided and try and run big towns with The Drifter V Murphy in the main events is out to lunch on this. He understands the audience he is serving.

Surely if they're making Smackdown more like NXT, the obvious choice is to give Hunter the keys to the car and let NXT become the actual developmental territory it was always supposed to be.

Agent Coulson

RAW the Entertainment show

Smackdown the Wrestling show.

I'd be pretty happy with that.

gerrybbadd

Very happy with this news.

Is Heyman expected to run Smackdown? If so, we are in for a treat!

J. Marston

Agent Coulson wrote: »

RAW the Entertainment show

Smackdown the Wrestling show.

I'd be pretty happy with that.

Funny how the entertainment show will be headed by a guy with the personality of a kettle.

Mr.Nice Guy

There will be pros and cons to it but at least it will shake things up.

With regards making Smackdown more about wrestling, what concerns me about that is the political machinations backstage. From listening to Paul Heyman talk about the time he booked Smackdown when you had Edge, Eddie, Rey etc. earning the show rave reviews, he made it plain that there were many backstage who didn't like Raw being seen to be falling behind Smackdown in terms of quality.

So I wonder whether the likes of Vince and Kevin Dunn would be thrilled to see that potentially happen all over again. I don't think they mind NXT chants at Raw, and that being perceived as better, because realistically they know it will never be seen as on a par with the A show that is Raw. But a Smackdown booked like NXT would be a different story and I would fear all the political BS would see them try to prevent it from getting off the ground.

Agent Coulson

J. Marston wrote: »

Funny how the entertainment show will be headed by a guy with the personality of a kettle.

Cena will be back soon enough to chew up the scenery and take back his spot.

ERG89

Chain Smoker wrote: »

Surely if they're making Smackdown more like NXT, the obvious choice is to give Hunter the keys to the car and let NXT become the actual developmental territory it was always supposed to be.

Might have to start actually making money too

Chain Smoker

How exactly will they fill 3 hours of raw if all the good workers are shipped off to Smackdown?

I feel like this isn't going to work out at all, to be honest.