Single-brand PPVs - do we miss them?

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

It seems like single-brand PPVs, while overpopulating the PPV schedule, were an opportunity to showcase talents who wouldn't otherwise get showcased and have more depth in mid-card storylines than we used to have. These days everyone is either worthless or a main event talent, but in the brand split days there were actually people in between. It also meant the shows could have distinct identities, Smackdown being the wrestling show generally, cruiserweights and all, Raw being the entertainment show.

Anyone else miss the single brand PPVs?

(Sidebar: Out of interest, and I know I've been going on about draws a lot lately, but what were the bigger selling single-brand PPVs?)

[Deleted]

Nope. Talent spread too thinly leading to a lot of filler crap. I'm much more partial to a smaller roster and joint PPVs.

[Deleted]

A) We still get plenty of filler crap.

B) I miss the brand split. I really enjoyed the idea of each show being its own thing. I REALLY helped make having two different world titles make sense. I mean, WTF is the difference between the WHC and the WWE title?

They had drafts and trades and IF they would have kept the brands separate it helped to create an interest if someone was traded (and/or a cross branded PPV like Bragging Rights) where you got to see wrestlers who haven't fought in a while go at it.

[Deleted]

I don't. What single brand PPVs meant was one show for a month would promote like 2 feuds and that'd be all you see. Then 4 other matches would get 1 week of build.

I'm not claiming they promote some super well rounded card now, but it's a lot better than it was before.

[Dean-o]

I don't. The roster is too small for single brand PPV's. Then again, if they properly used 50% of their roster, we wouldn't have this problem, but they have so much dead weight that just sits at home collecting a paycheck for some reason.

[Deleted]

I think people really romanticize the single brand PPV's. Sure, when they were done right they were entertaining and gave the rosters more to do and a better chance at showcasing their talents. Good examples would be Vengeance 2003, Backlash 2004 and Vengeance 2005. Each of those featured strong cards which had long matches, and storylines which people actually cared about.

However during that period there were also a number of shockingly bad PPV's. Great American Bash 2004 is one of the worst PPV's I've ever seen, with such elusive matches as Luther Reigns vs. Charlie Haas, Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn, Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly and of course Undertaker vs. The Dudleys as the main event. People had to PAY to watch those! Other bad PPV's were Armageddon 2003, Armageddon 2004, Cyber Sunday 2006 and of course December to Dismember. There were also a lot of 'bleh' events where nothing of value really happened.

Just because a PPV lets the roster flex their muscles and showcase themselves doesn't necessarily mean its going to be good. It depends on the talent, and if the talent sucks (like some did between 2003 and 2007) then it'll lead to a bad show.

[agent817]

Great American Bash 2004 was an example of a bad single-brand PPV, with the except of three matches (The fatal four way, Rey/Chavo, and JBL/Eddie), the show sucked as they were filled with matches that would more than likely be on Smackdown or Velocity for that matter, not on PPV. Did people really pay to watch Charlie Haas take on Luther Reigns? Or what about Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn? Or even Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly? Those matches were filler if I ever saw it. Let's not forget the filler with Torrie and Sable.

[Hit Girl]

No

They were simpler longer versions of RAW and Smackdown, and WWE never had the roster depth to justify them.

[Djm Doesn't Find You Funny]

No.

WWE Creative proved itself utterly incapable of splitting its resources to deliver two quality shows. You could make the case that they never have since the brand split.

There was plenty of roster depth and has been for a while. The writers just aren't that great.

[kidglov3s]

No, they were not fun for me to watch. When I was going through the PPVs from 2002 to 2009 I not only was very happy when the co-brand PPVs came up but I rejoiced when the brand-specific PPVs came to an end in 2007. Terrible idea.

[Deleted]

Aug 18, 2013 10:27:04 GMT -5 @burngun said:

I think people really romanticize the single brand PPV's. Sure, when they were done right they were entertaining and gave the rosters more to do and a better chance at showcasing their talents. Good examples would be Vengeance 2003, Backlash 2004 and Vengeance 2005. Each of those featured strong cards which had long matches, and storylines which people actually cared about.

However during that period there were also a number of shockingly bad PPV's. Great American Bash 2004 is one of the worst PPV's I've ever seen, with such elusive matches as Luther Reigns vs. Charlie Haas, Kenzo Suzuki vs. Billy Gunn, Mordecai vs. Hardcore Holly and of course Undertaker vs. The Dudleys as the main event. People had to PAY to watch those! Other bad PPV's were Armageddon 2003, Armageddon 2004, Cyber Sunday 2006 and of course December to Dismember. There were also a lot of 'bleh' events where nothing of value really happened.

Just because a PPV lets the roster flex their muscles and showcase themselves doesn't necessarily mean its going to be good. It depends on the talent, and if the talent sucks (like some did between 2003 and 2007) then it'll lead to a bad show.

You can't expect WWE to just give away Luther Reigns vs Charlie Haas for free.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Aug 18, 2013 10:37:37 GMT -5 Djm Doesn't Find You Funny said:

No.

WWE Creative proved itself utterly incapable of splitting its resources to deliver two quality shows. You could make the case that they never have since the brand split.

There was plenty of roster depth and has been for a while. The writers just aren't that great.

What this suggests to me is not that the single-brand PPVs were a good era, but they were a good idea that WWE just wasn't equipped to use properly. I mean people are listing all the above matches like they are terrible choices, but surely if the writing/booking was strong enough, all of the above matches would have fan investment and be worth watching.

I mean WCW made millions off PPVs with a horde of no-name guys on the undercard (I know a lot of the luchadores and Japanese guys had real name value in the states too, but many of them didn't) because taking the names out of the equation, you just had great wrestling and that would get the crowd hot by itself.

[Hit Girl]

Single brands are fine if each brand is significantly distinct from the other. The brand split in WWE was just WWE Red and WWE Blue, so it's pointless.

[Gerard Gerard]

I really loved the concept, but I wasted far too much money on 3-hour shows, that were, more often than not, 1 match cards.

[Hit Girl]

Like I've said before, the only way a brand split could work today is if the two brands were "WWE" (Raw and Smackdown, PG, kid/family friendly, typical "sports entertainment" silliness, skits and comedy segments) and a smaller, stripped down spin-off brand with a distinct name that would operate (kayfabe) as an semi-independent subsidiary, and would feature a trimmed roster, more harder hitting, adult content for the older mainly male demographic in smaller arenas with more of a focus on "wrestling"/in-ring action. It would be the Miramax to WWE's Disney. In essence, an edgy "indie" operating under WWE's control.

[Jiren]

Aug 18, 2013 11:55:05 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Like I've said before, the only way a brand split could work today is if the two brands were "WWE" (Raw and Smackdown, PG, kid/family friendly, typical "sports entertainment" silliness, skits and comedy segments) and a smaller, stripped down spin-off brand with a distinct name that would operate (kayfabe) as an semi-independent subsidiary, and would feature a trimmed roster, more harder hitting, adult content for the older mainly male demographic in smaller arenas with more of a focus on "wrestling"/in-ring action. It would be the Miramax to WWE's Disney. In essence, an edgy "indie" operating under WWE's control.

I'd like that, It'd be like WWF magazine & Raw Magazine back in the day

Also I think there's too many PPVs

[Red Impact]

They could have worked back when your top level talent rarely competed and PPV's were a special chance to see them. But when your ME talent competes every single week, it's hard to not make them just a 3 hour Raw/Smackdown, and WWE just didn't have the set up or creative talent to make it work.

[Hawk Hart]

I certainly do. Too much good came from single brand PPVs with a big roster, a lot more guys got their time to shine on a bigger stage than a 3 minute Smackdown match. I'm not saying every PPV was gold but we got to see a lot of things we wouldn't have otherwise if not for split PPVs.

[Spiderf 4]

Recently I've been watching a few of these old single-brand events, and I've liked what I've seen. There was a lot of good quality action and everything felt more important than it was. But I get the argument against them, it's a lot to ask for the PPV buyer to pay full price for 6 matches involving half the roster.

[Vice honcho room temperature]

Maybe if they didn't charge full price for them people would have been more forgiving