Shane McMahon returns to WWE

[Eduardo]

Brand split did provide a Smackdown that saw the growth of John Cena, saw Eddy Guerrero and Rey Mysterio Jr. become draws that WWE still is looking to imitate, Dave Batista also becoming a strong draw, and lots of other interesting stuff, including arguably Dave Finlay's best work, Mark Henry's best work too, Matt Hardy having weekly strong matches, and other random goodness, like Kid Kash and Jamie Noble having good runs.

[Jesse Ewiak]

People hated the brand split when it was around. It is a great thing in theory, but WWE wasn't disciplined enough to stick with doing it the right way, and there's no evidence it wouldn't run into the same problems this time around. When Punk and Bryan were champions of their respective brands and having forgotten matches against each other in the middle of random Raws, you see how much world champ vs WWE champ really meant.

 

END THE BRAND SPLIT was a rallying cry throughout the 2000s for a way to freshen up WWE. People want it back because they want WWE to freshen up, but as we've seen before, it won't work. Their institutionalized creative woes run much deeper than a brand split can alleviate, and they'd rather reshuffle their entire business model than earnestly face those problems.

 

I think the thing is the Internet Fans of the mid to late 2000's hated the brand split, but the Internet Fans of 2016 were in their tweens or teenage years during the mid-2000's and not on the IWC of the time, so the Brand Split has nostalgia to it.

[goc]

Most people who were crying for the brand split to end were people who were upset that Smackdown was better yet somehow were too stubborn to actually watch it. I don't give a shit about those people and would wholeheartedly welcome the brand split coming back. My interest in WWE took a huge nose dive pretty much as soon as it went away.

 

And even though Smackdown created more stars and was almost always the better show, it still forced them to be more creative on Raw. They had to eventually start building up some new stars like Orton (who they quickly fucked up) and Batista once HHH had killed off everyone. Even one of Raw's worst periods like 2002 gave us the awesome BookDust pairing.

[fakeplastictrees]

I loved the brand split when it happened, but began to call for the end of it once it became essentially non-existent with people floating between rosters very freely to the point that everyone was 'allowed' to be on Raw while Smackdown still had (but not really) 'exclusive' talent and treated like the B brand. Smackdown became WWE's version of Thunder where nothing of importance happened and if anyone became a star or actually important he or she was moved over to Raw. The increase in the number of titles also didn't help things. Both Raw and Smackdown had its own Women's title, Tag Team title, and World Heavyweight title. Hopefully this go around, if its done, WWE keeps it simple by pairing the U.S. title and Tag Team titles on one show and the I.C. Title and the Divas title on another show. One Heavyweight title.

[The Man in Blak]

Most people who were crying for the brand split to end were people who were upset that Smackdown was better yet somehow were too stubborn to actually watch it.

 

Or they didn't actually have access to watching Smackdown and, thus, were stuck with Raw during the Triple H reign of terror.

[Grimmas]

My favourite thing about the brand split was I could skip Raw, watch SD and get a good show each week.

[SteveJRogers]

 

 

Most people who were crying for the brand split to end were people who were upset that Smackdown was better yet somehow were too stubborn to actually watch it.

Or they didn't actually have access to watching Smackdown and, thus, were stuck with Raw during the Triple H reign of terror.

Smackdown was on UPN (through September 15th 2006)/CW (through September 26th 2008)/MyNetworkTv (which was over the air in many markets) until Sept 24th 2010 and debuted on SyFy October 1st, 2010.

 

Pretty much the entire "true" brand split era, a case can be made that more people could access Smackdown than they could Raw on TNN/Spike/USA!

[The Man in Blak]

 

 

Most people who were crying for the brand split to end were people who were upset that Smackdown was better yet somehow were too stubborn to actually watch it.

Or they didn't actually have access to watching Smackdown and, thus, were stuck with Raw during the Triple H reign of terror.

Smackdown was on UPN (through September 15th 2006)/CW (through September 26th 2008)/MyNetworkTv (which was over the air in many markets) until Sept 24th 2010 and debuted on SyFy October 1st, 2010.

 

Pretty much the entire "true" brand split era, a case can be made that more people could access Smackdown than they could Raw on TNN/Spike/USA!

 

 

I guess that was my fault for walking away from the product during the "false" brand split era of 2002-2004 that preceded the window of time that you described, since what I described in my original post was the situation I was facing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Eduardo]

 

 

Most people who were crying for the brand split to end were people who were upset that Smackdown was better yet somehow were too stubborn to actually watch it.

Or they didn't actually have access to watching Smackdown and, thus, were stuck with Raw during the Triple H reign of terror.

Smackdown was on UPN (through September 15th 2006)/CW (through September 26th 2008)/MyNetworkTv (which was over the air in many markets) until Sept 24th 2010 and debuted on SyFy October 1st, 2010.

 

Pretty much the entire "true" brand split era, a case can be made that more people could access Smackdown than they could Raw on TNN/Spike/USA!

 

 

More people overall did have access to Smackdown but there were also some markets that didn't carry UPN or had bad (at times) bad signals of that channel.

[goc]

All that is true but the majority of the complaints about Smackdown weren't from people that didn't have access to it. It was generally stupid stuff like "Why should I watch a taped show, I can just read spoilers" or "Raw is the A-show why should I watch Smackdown?"

[Eduardo]

Yeah there was a lot of that, also it being on Thursday and Friday night did also hurt it. Also, the people I knew that were excited about RAW and people I knew that were excited about Smackdown tended to be different audiences, with different backgrounds.

[Slasher]

As long as Vince is around, the heel authority figure is never going away. Giving them a brand split only either means Authority running two shows or having two separate heel authority figures. I do think though that when the company falls under Triple H's control that we'll finally see it come to an end. Though that's only assuming its true that Triple H had fought with Vince over having him dominate the shows as the heel authority, with Triple H preferring to scale back on the trope and Vince forcing it.

[goc]

Is that why Smackdown had babyface authority figure Teddy Long for the majority of it's run? And even during the period of Vickie Guerrero being GM they mostly kept her confined to one angle at a time instead of being all over the whole show.

[Eduardo]

Also, fuck, Teddy Long was super over. I remember seeing him at house shows get some of the loudest pops, and reading that was a consistent thing on house show reports in the WON.

[goc]

I thought he performed really well in the feud with Drew McIntyre and did a lot (along with Matt Hardy) to get Drew over as a heel. That was the one great casualty of the Nexus stuff because once Vince was off TV Drew's "Chosen One" push totally died.

[Slasher]

Is that why Smackdown had babyface authority figure Teddy Long for the majority of it's run? And even during the period of Vickie Guerrero being GM they mostly kept her confined to one angle at a time instead of being all over the whole show.

You do realize that it is a McMahon challenging Triple H and Stephanie right? Shane would probably be a babyface for a while but he's predestined to be meddled with by Vince and having to turn heel to get someone like say Sami Zayn over as the latest rebel against the machine. They can't stop recycling the Austin/McMahon storyline for as long as Vince wants to. Teddy Long had a long run as a babyface manager sure, but he was also always put into his place whenever a "real" authority figure showed up on Smackdown. Teddy was the closest thing to a pro wrestling equivalent of "mid manager" in an office hierarchy. But if they are doing tbe RAW vs WWE war thing, this means more McMahon involvement so any hopes for a Teddy Long version 2.0 is shit outta luck.

[goc]

Sounds awful familiar to the complaints about the brand split being McMahon dominated the first time around which didn't last very long at all.

[Jimmy Redman]

This is all sadly true.

 

Man, in hindsight one of the best things about SD during the period I loved it was that it usually had a babyface GM and there was no heel authority bullshit, just a guy who made matches when needed.

 

That said, I loved Vickie's run too. She was entertaining but also more willing to show ass and get her comeuppance than the McMahons are, even though she's a woman. She'd go through cycles of being there, then getting an angle and being all over the show, to getting what for and moving back into a "just there" role until the next angle, and so on. Whereas with The Authority, they're all over the show week in, week out, with no reprieve, and it's been years on end now.

[Slasher]

It didn't? Didn't we have a year long Triple H reign around this time on Raw and didn't we see a very uncomfortable Vince vs Stephanie feud at the same time dominating Smackdown while Brock was off to the side messing around with Taker before Vince got involved with Taker in a feud? Not dominated by McMahons? Sure coulda have fooled me.

[goc]

I guess you missed the part where I said that didn't last very long. The Vince/Steph stuff is a blip on the radar of the entire brand split. Smackdown wasn't McMahon dominated no matter how much you want to try to stretch it fit your "Oh god everything always sucked and is going to suck forever and ever" narrative.

 

Jimmy Redman I agree with you. Vickie was the best heel authority figure, even better than Bischoff, because she was only involved in her own angles and otherwise didn't dominate the shows.

[Jimmy Redman]

Yeah the first 18 months of the brand split was McMahonamania, but by the end of 2003, they were all off TV as regular characters, and in fact everyone, even Vince, almost wholly stayed off TV until late 2005 when they did that Raw special and Austin stunned them all. So that was a whole two year period with no McMahons anywhere.

 

From that point they had regular runs - vs DX in 2006, Billionaire Vince in 2007, Vince/Shane/Hunter vs Orton in 2009, Vince vs Bret in 2010, Vince's involvement in the Summer of Punk in 2011, and now as The Authority since mid 2013.

 

This is actually the longest sustained run on TV they've had since the Attitude Era.

[Coffey]

Can we just talk about pro-wrestling without taking personal shots at one another (this thread) or making gay "jokes" (NXT thread)? I'm not loving the direction I'm seeing things lately. C'mon, y'all. Let's not turn this into DVDVR.

[Death From Above]

Your constant need to take shots at others while pretending not to take shots at others is a situation where you could take your own advice.

[Slasher]

Smackdown settled in after a while, I will agree, but when we are talking about a brand split off the heels of a McMahon centric storyline, how can there not be any expectations that it'd be McMahon dominated? They are why we are even talking about the brand split again! So if it is a permanent split and not just something to sell the angle, sure, I'll look forward to Smackdown in 2018. But I think being concerned is a valid thing for 2016.

[Alucard]

I loved the brand split for reasons others stated like the growth of new stars. Always dug how it felt special when guys switched brands or interacted with guys from the other show during the big 4 PPVs. Like when Angle got drafted to Raw in 05 and was in the ring with Triple H, it was a cool moment that stood out as 'wow these guys really haven't been involved with each other for years!' or when Evolution and the Cabinet met in the back at the 05 Rumble. Also was a good way to give guys fresh starts on the oppostie show.