the ongoing raw v smackdown debate

cmb.

sometimes you come accross an opinion that mirrors your very thought, but says it a whole lot better than you - i saw this guest editorial on the torchs website and thought i shoud share it with the other useds of the board:


PWTorch.com Guest Editorial
By Paul "The Masked Debater" Trampe of Pensacola, Fla.
PWTorch.com reader

It hit me today. I know why Raw is trailing Smackdown and why nothing they try is working.

Raw is becoming WCW. I'm not talking about aesthetic changes like the announce booth being moved or the old WCW World Championship belt being brought back. I'm talking about the things that Raw is doing that most likely haven't been done with WCW in mind.

Raw is playing catch-up, and they're doing it the way WCW tried to catch up with the then-WWF. Instead of being their own league doing things their own way, they are trying to outdo Smackdown at Smackdown's game.

HLA is just one example of this. Smackdown was getting huge press for the gay wedding, so Raw, instead of using the rub to show its own stuff, hatches HLA.

Raw has also been running a lot more gimmicks, having numerous matches lately end in table spots, running a ladder match main event two weeks in a row (Eddie Guerrero vs. Rob Van Dam and then Undertaker vs. Jeff Hardy), and the hardcore brawls (with the Nowinski vs. Dreamer feud going on even after Dreamer's hardcore title was retired). While Smackdown has been light on the gimmicks, Raw's been trying to be so extreme they just have to get people's attention.

But it didn't work when Vince Russo did it in WCW. The numerous T&A matches, the string of worked shoots following the Russo/Jarrett/Hogan shoot, the triple cage, the four-tag-team Hell in a Cell debacle, and anything else they did to outdo the WWE didn't work.

Right now, it seems the fans are at their "smartest" point in a long time, as they are appreciating the high level of wrestling in Smackdown that, for the most part, goes untarnished by other gimmicks. The gay wedding aside, most segments on Smackdown are about promoting the wrestlers as wrestlers.

On Raw, most segments are about promoting Raw. The wrestlers take a backseat to the rest of the show. Only Triple H gets promoted as himself, and the fans are starting to grow weary. Look at the fan support Bubba got out of almost nowhere, just for complaining about Raw becoming "The Triple H show." The fans want to see the great talents on Raw shine like their Smackdown counterparts get to, but whenever somebody starts to shine, a segment with either Eric Bischoff or Triple H comes on, promoting either the show as a whole or Triple H as the biggest guy in the history of sports, entertainment, sports entertainment, bread-slicing, cheese-making, and animal husbandry.

The fans want Raw to succeed, but as long as it tries to outdo Smackdown instead of being its own show, it's not going to happen.

cactus jack

the way the brand split is going they should think about packing in raw and giving smackdown 2 spots a week. unrealistic i know.
the way things are going they should limit the brand extensions to say 8 or 10 wrestlers and the rest can interchange weekly or could even appear on both constantly.
while smackdown is great and people might say it ain't borke so don't fix it i do think that the cruiserweight division could really help bolster raw while making for better competition if they where to have matches for this division on both raw and smackdown.
when you look at it one great match from this division is all you usually get from this division a week
and then they try pair up tajiri and jamie noble to face billy & chuck which is just laughable.
while seing someone like tajiri or rey mysterio fight bigger guys is good with a lot of the other cruisers it just doesn't work to well
i'd say in main leave the cruiserweight division to itself

Ph3n0m

the main problem I have with Raw is HHH, plain and simple. The guy is not the heel I know, hell with all the rumours and stories about him using his power base to give hims torylines that make him look better, well that is just plain foolishness. I mean look at it this way, when was the last time a "champion" beat two other wrestlers with a damn sleeper hold, and one of those other wrestler's is a former IC champ and multi tag team champ. It makes me sick that one man has gotten such a strangle hold, that it will take something serious for him to be removed. WHen I watched Unforgiven I knew deep down that HHH would never job to VanDam, I mean hell he destroyed any credibility Jericho had by never jobbing to him at any PPV. HHH is a selfish wrestler, he like the Undertaker (done get me started on him) have become lazy, sloppy and above all selfish to the extent they will (occasionally) put over already elevated wrestlers, in other words never help the mid carders achieve main event status.

HHH has been shagging SMH for some time and it is believed that he uses his influence on her (as she is part of the creative writing team) to place himself in a stronger position. But whats even worse is that he then has the gall to criticise other wrestlers who may leave house shows earlier then him, in a recent interview on WWE.com this fact was mentioned, and then the grumblings about HHH started.

Dont get me wrong here, I appreciate what HHH has done in the past, before he did his leg in, but since then he has come across to me as being very bloody selfish, unless you count his one time offer of generoisty to HBK, but then again he is a real life friend to him, so that probably doesnt count.

Smackdown is by far and away the superior show (even though Vince McMahon apparantly prefers RAW), Smackdown has Benoit, Angle, Guerrero, along with the cruiserweights, Brock Lesnar and Edge. I ignore the fact that the Undertaker is on Smackdown as h is an old dinosaur who obviously couldnt be bothered jobbing to Lesnar at Unforgiven (and if he becomes the first man to beat Lesnar at No Mercy, I will really, really be upset). But Smackdown's storyy seem smoother, with less time spent on boring 20 minute promo's and instead concentrating on instense action that the fans can enjoy. Example would be Benoit and Angle, two heels at Unforgiven and both were throughly applauded by the fans, simple as that.

The sooner WWE realise that what they give the fans and what the fans actually want are two different things, then the sooner things will start to change for the better. As it stands the WWE sucks, but Smackdown sucks less the RAW does (ok a crappy way to end a rant, but meh, I dont care )

bombidol

Anyone else notice that smackdown matches are a lot longer than they used to be too?

What i would love to see is WWE to split into 3 shows . WWE WCW and ECW . Giving ECW to Heyman and giving them a time spot that can allow propper oldschool hardcore matches . WCW given to Beschoff for him to play around with lots of cruiserweight matches , and then WWE do what they do . Put all the wrestlers back to their origional feds and work from there . Let each fed have a few PPVs each themselves and for Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania let the 3 come together . That means 2 world title fights a year . Now thats a long shot but it would be great to see.