AriadosMan
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Your friendly neighborhood superhero
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Post by AriadosMan on Dec 28, 2009 16:02:22 GMT -5
The brand split remains a divisive topic on here. As recently as 6 months ago, I would have strongly suggested maintaining the brand split because I thought of Smackdown as a "gateway" to the main event and RAW as the "established" main event. However, this distinction has all but vanished. The main event on Smackdown? Taker vs. Batista. That's it. No third or fourth contender, just those two. Does anyone see Rey as a serious threat? I don't think so. Both are established guys who are as over as they possibly can and will be. Smackdown isn't some goldmine where young guys get "Made" as MEs, at least not anymore.
Another problem with the brand split is that it really doesn't exist anymore in anything but name. It used to be that talent would only get shifted at the draft or when someone was urgently needed. This is no longer the case. Guys get vomited out of ECW at a moment's notice, and Divas get switched around with no regard for the regular rules of the yearly draft that WWE established. As a result, the shows themselves have little character. Why should we care whether "RAW" or "Smackdown" wins at Bragging Rights if JeriShow's bond with each other supercedes brand loyalty? The status of a wrestler as "face" or "heel" supercedes loyalty to their "team". If guys in Football just ditched their team because they didn't like another guy on it, how long would the NFL last? The "identity" of RAW and Smackdown as franchsies feels very thin.
The final problem with the brand is related to recession-era cost cutting. When WWE started the split in 2003, they had quite possibly their biggest and richest roster of all time. They had "absorbed" most of WCW and ECW, and kept most of their Attitude guys. Now, after 2 years of recession-era cost cutting, WWE is a different story. Every last ECW Original is gone. Most of the WCW talent that had "name" value other than Rey is in TNA. Most of their Attitude era guys who remained got eliminated last year. And there will surely be even more eliminations this year. TNA, which only has one two-hour show, has 3 singles belt. WWE, which has triple the number the number of regular TV hours TNA has, has only five. The ME scene is as thin as its ever been on both of the big brands. Merging the rosters would provide a more diverse ME scene and give a chance for more midcarders to get over as tag teams/factions. There is no drawback now IMO.
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Post by I Like Your Poetry on Dec 28, 2009 16:53:46 GMT -5
No. Just no.
Let me ask you...you're complaining about 3rd and 4th string main eventers on Smackdown! Hell, most of the midcarders won't see the light of day if the brand split were to end...welcome to 3 shows full of main events featuring Cena, HHH, HBK, Randy Orton, Undertaker, Batista, Rey Mysterio, and occasionally possibly CM Punk.
Midcarders will suffer MORE if the split ends...Raw barely knows how to book the ones they have now, not to mention the 20 or so more ones that would be the influx. (Plus all those that would be released.)
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Post by Fade is a CodyCryBaby on Dec 28, 2009 16:56:11 GMT -5
I tried giving the Brand Split hope, especially with guys like Ross say "Give it time" and that it could take years and years to find out its true potential.
Screw that noise. I think it's been time to end it for a while now. But it probably won't happen.
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AriadosMan
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Your friendly neighborhood superhero
Posts: 15,620
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Post by AriadosMan on Dec 28, 2009 16:58:00 GMT -5
No. Just no. Let me ask you...you're complaining about 3rd and 4th string main eventers on Smackdown! Hell, most of the midcarders won't see the light of day if the brand split were to end...welcome to 3 shows full of main events featuring Cena, HHH, HBK, Randy Orton, Undertaker, Batista, Rey Mysterio, and occasionally possibly CM Punk. Midcarders will suffer MORE if the split ends...Raw barely knows how to book the ones they have now, not to mention the 20 or so more ones that would be the influx. (Plus all those that would be released.) Smackdown books them just as badly as RAW does now. If anything, merging the ME would result in more interesting storylines than what currently exists. I don't think CM Punk mentoring Festus counts as much of a push, and neither does what Dolph got earlier.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2009 16:58:10 GMT -5
Personally?
If the brand split ever ends, or if the World and WWE titles are ever unified, that would be the one thing that would make me stop watching.
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B.B.M
Hank Scorpio
Scavenger Hunt All-Star
Where did the Lime go?
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Post by B.B.M on Dec 28, 2009 17:00:50 GMT -5
If the brand split ended, most of the Midcarders, and some of the upper midcarders would be released. and nobody wants to see that. Also the split brands add variety, we don't want that taken away as well.
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Above Average
Wade Wilson
Being Held Down by the Man and Several "Women"
Old School Tope Con Fiveo!!!
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Post by Above Average on Dec 28, 2009 17:02:18 GMT -5
Is it that time of the week again?
And now that I've got that comment out of the way, I'd like to say I agree, it's time to end the brand split.
People wouldn't need released at all. Just because the split ends doesn't mean people need to show up on all 4 shows every week does it? You can still have each person showing up once, but the difference is it adds a lot more variety. It means you don't need to have 3 World titles and 2 Women's belts either. It would also stop the main event feuds from being on a constant cycle.
So yeah, I agree.
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Post by Fade is a CodyCryBaby on Dec 28, 2009 17:05:31 GMT -5
They've had MORE Wrestlers before when it was one unified roster than they have combined now as three rosters, where does this misconception keep sprouting out that they'll have to fire a plethora of people?
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AriadosMan
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Your friendly neighborhood superhero
Posts: 15,620
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Post by AriadosMan on Dec 28, 2009 17:06:21 GMT -5
They've had MORE Wrestlers before when it was one unified roster than they have combined now as three rosters, where does this misconception keep sprouting out that they'll have to fire a plethora of people? That, and they've fired a plethora of people while the brand split has still existed. If they want to keep firing, they'll do it regrdless of the integrity of the "brands", which barely exist in any function other than as a show name at this point.
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@TenaciousBe
Hank Scorpio
Guess who's back... back again
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Post by @TenaciousBe on Dec 28, 2009 17:07:19 GMT -5
Most of the WCW talent that had "name" value other than Rey is in TNA. I would argue that Jericho made a pretty big name for himself in WCW. He may not have gotten to the main event over there, but he was a big name acquisition. As well as Show/Giant, Chavo, and maybe to a lesser extent, Finlay and Regal. Either way, nobody to build a complete show around. Anyway, I agree with your point though. I could go for a slow-burn ending of the split though. Just do as they do now, but slowly start trickling more and more guys over from one show to the other. I really don't mind the way things are now, with each brand having less of an identity and more of a "which graphic to slap by the guy's name when he comes out" feel, as long as they get rid of stuff like Bragging Rights. Unfortunately, I don't think it's going away officially any time soon. They've built themselves a great little empire in the Smackdown vs Raw video games, and if they end the split, they have to rebrand those games.
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Above Average
Wade Wilson
Being Held Down by the Man and Several "Women"
Old School Tope Con Fiveo!!!
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Post by Above Average on Dec 28, 2009 17:10:10 GMT -5
Isn't the roster the same size as it was in 1998? When they had only 4 hours of TV a week, as opposed to now when they have 6.
I think it's safe to say, nobody would need to be released.
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AriadosMan
Bill S. Preston, Esq.
Your friendly neighborhood superhero
Posts: 15,620
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Post by AriadosMan on Dec 28, 2009 17:11:47 GMT -5
Most of the WCW talent that had "name" value other than Rey is in TNA. I would argue that Jericho made a pretty big name for himself in WCW. He may not have gotten to the main event over there, but he was a big name acquisition. As well as Show/Giant, Chavo, and maybe to a lesser extent, Finlay and Regal. Either way, nobody to build a complete show around. Anyway, I agree with your point though. I could go for a slow-burn ending of the split though. Just do as they do now, but slowly start trickling more and more guys over from one show to the other. I really don't mind the way things are now, with each brand having less of an identity and more of a "which graphic to slap by the guy's name when he comes out" feel, as long as they get rid of stuff like Bragging Rights. Unfortunately, I don't think it's going away officially any time soon. They've built themselves a great little empire in the Smackdown vs Raw video games, and if they end the split, they have to rebrand those games. Yeah, you're right, its just that Jericho and Show have been WWE for so long I barely remembered them as anything else.
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barley96
Dennis Stamp
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Post by barley96 on Dec 28, 2009 17:13:04 GMT -5
In my opinion, I think that a competent booker could do without the brand split in a way that nobody will be released, however with the current direction of WWE, most wrestlers will be out of a job because WWE sucks at using all of their wrestlers. With the brand split (3 shows) there is no excuse why there are wrestlers on the roster that are used so little that even most smarks are shocked to learn that said wrestler is still employed.
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Post by xxshoyuweeniexx on Dec 28, 2009 17:17:17 GMT -5
The biggest thing about this would be the releases. Guys like Primo, Evan Bourne, Dolph Ziggler, and many others would be gone.
But what sucks is that the only reason this happens is because the writers currently seem so damn inept to actually have feuds for the midcard that don't involve freaking titles. I can't begin to go on and on about how many feuds have been started and ended in a course of 2 weeks. Mike Knox attacked Finlay, got his rematch on Superstarts, and it was never spoken of again. They could have stretched it out until Summerslam or Breaking Point in a Street Fight or Belfast Brawl. How about Miz vs Jack Swagger for Eve and later the US title when Miz won it? Or Matt Hardy vs Punk one on one in a cage match? Kozlov and a partner of his choice vs Zeke and Regal in an Extreme Rules match? There's loads of possibility there. Hate Vince Russo all you want, but he knew how to get everyone on the show and make Bluth gobs of money at the same time.
But no, only 20% of the roster matters and the others mean jack crap and are just there to make Triple H and John Cena look good. Until they learn that you can have an entertaining show with the entire roster and get even more money from merchandise of lower card wrestlers if you showcase them on the same show along with the midget, DX, and Cena, then they should keep things the way they are before they get worse.
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Post by Texas Tornado on Dec 28, 2009 17:21:19 GMT -5
I'd rather that if they keep it they actually legitimize the thing. Back in the "heyday" of the brand split I guess, it was unheard of to be on Raw if you were from Smackdown. You had wrestlers pissed they were getting drafted away from their show to the other. Now you have these moments where someone gets drafted and they just shrug and go backstage. They've gone into being so "faces are good heels are bad" all the time that there's no excitement between the brands, which I know you mentioned when talking about the bragging rights match.
I wish the WWE could do well without a brand split and all, but at this point those writers are not the ones I'd lay my trust into. They barely book their current champion on Raw, and they do throwaway matches and segments on Smackdown half the time. I figure that if they didn't have the barely standing line between the brands they'd get even lazier and just book the same 4 people on WWE TV every week, with 10 diva tag matches and 8 man tag matches bi-weekly to fill the slots.
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Post by Cry Me a Wiggle on Dec 28, 2009 17:23:36 GMT -5
The reason the brand split was created in the first place was out of the ashes of the idea of running the WWF and WCW as two separate "companies." Now that Chavo is the last surviving WCW wrestler on the roster, I'd say it's definitely time to dump the idea.
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Post by Fade is a CodyCryBaby on Dec 28, 2009 17:29:19 GMT -5
Another thing I never got is that it often seems to be a bragging issue, or some sort of sign of credibility in terms of the roster-split that they each show has different fans. Like HBK in some DVD mentioned that they've shown that RAW fans watch RAW and not SD! and vice versa.
And I'm like..."This is a good thing?!"
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Post by machomuta on Dec 28, 2009 17:32:18 GMT -5
Personally? If the brand split ever ends, or if the World and WWE titles are ever unified, that would be the one thing that would make me stop watching. So you didnt watch WWE before the brand split?
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Post by Mayonnaise on Dec 28, 2009 17:36:34 GMT -5
The reason the brand split was created in the first place was out of the ashes of the idea of running the WWF and WCW as two separate "companies." Now that Chavo is the last surviving WCW wrestler on the roster, I'd say it's definitely time to dump the idea. Well, it also in theory allowed them to make more money based off having a second touring company. That said, honestly, getting rid of the brand split might be the one thing that drives me away. I have grown to hate RAW so much that their guys (minus DX and Legacy) on ECW and Smackdown, those writers having more say on the other shows would probably be the one thing that does me in.
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Post by Bobafett on Dec 28, 2009 17:44:09 GMT -5
WWE actually needs Vince Russo. look at the attitude era and TNA now, ok you can argue its a clusterf*** but at least more guys are utilised and you care about midcarders as much as the Main eventers
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