Smackdown moving to Tuesday and going live

[The Chief]

There is a LOT of raiding you can do to NXT and then just shuffle in the Global Crusierweight Series folks onto NXT. Is losing Balor, Joe, etc.. going to hurt that bad if it's then focused on Zack Sabre Jr, Biff Busick, Drew Gulak, La Sombra, etc.. ?

 

That's probably exactly what's going to happen. NXT will take the place of ECW as the brand that is constantly refreshed as they supply the bigger 2 with talent.

[concrete1992]

 

Two champions not only repeats the mistakes of the last split, it dilutes their efforts to make Roman the Top Guy (since of course he'll be one of the champions).

If more than one person is the top star, then nobody is the top star.

 

Does there need to be A top star?

[goc]

 

Two champions not only repeats the mistakes of the last split, it dilutes their efforts to make Roman the Top Guy (since of course he'll be one of the champions).

If more than one person is the top star, then nobody is the top star.

 

Because that really hurt Cena from becoming the top guy during the original brand split.

 

Seems pretty simple that someone could be the top guy on Raw and someone else would be the top guy on Smackdown but then just accepting the very simple logic of that (and how that would keep a top guy for each touring group) would eliminate hundreds of message board posts and tweets bitching about "omg devalued titles!"

[Bierschwale]

The one thing that I 100% cannot get behind is only having tag titles on one show. The three World titles (Heavyweight, Tag Team, and Women's) should be on both brands if you only have one of each. Two women's division titles might dilute things, yes, but it's anti-REVOLUTION if they aren't equal with the men. And then avoid the "Divas' title" problem by making one of them a tag division title.

[goc]

The one thing that I 100% cannot get behind is only having tag titles on one show. The three World titles (Heavyweight, Tag Team, and Women's) should be on both brands if you only have one of each. Two women's division titles might dilute things, yes, but it's anti-REVOLUTION if they aren't equal with the men.

I've read conflicting stuff about whether or not they will be on both shows. They actually did do a thing there after unifying the two sets of tag titles in 2009 where the tag champs could appear on all of the shows. That led to some good stuff from Miz/Morrison and later the Jericho/Big Show team.

 

I think there are enough teams now though to where they could have two sets of tag titles. The upside to that is we'd also get a set of tag belts that aren't as ugly as the ones they have now.

[fxnj]

The skepticism towards the brand split and having 2 world champions strikes me as complaining for the sake of complaining. For nearly all of its run, brand split era Smackdown was a remarkably good show because it filled a similar spot as NXT does now, giving guys a chance to develop their characters and in ring skills without the politics of Raw. And part of that includes letting guys shine in the show's own world title scene.

 

Saying you can't build top stars with 2 world titles is nonsense as that era gave us such memorable runs as the Jeff Hardy/CM Punk feud and Mark Henry's hall of pain, which I doubt could have developed as well as they did with Raw's politics in the way.

 

Since the end of the brand split, Smackdown has been a completely skippable show. It, and even Raw to an extent, just feel like glorified house shows with guys going out and having good matches that somehow feel utterly meaningless and forgettable in context. The company simply has too many talented guys to be able to develop something memorable without giving some people the shaft, so buying back the brand split is an obvious fix.

[sek69]

 

 

Two champions not only repeats the mistakes of the last split, it dilutes their efforts to make Roman the Top Guy (since of course he'll be one of the champions).

If more than one person is the top star, then nobody is the top star.

 

Because that really hurt Cena from becoming the top guy during the original brand split.

 

Seems pretty simple that someone could be the top guy on Raw and someone else would be the top guy on Smackdown but then just accepting the very simple logic of that (and how that would keep a top guy for each touring group) would eliminate hundreds of message board posts and tweets bitching about "omg devalued titles!"

 

 

 

Except that the top guy on Smackdown will almost inevitably be slotted as a B+ player, and just like the last time it leads to no one going to SD branded shows.

[fxnj]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two champions not only repeats the mistakes of the last split, it dilutes their efforts to make Roman the Top Guy (since of course he'll be one of the champions).

If more than one person is the top star, then nobody is the top star.

Because that really hurt Cena from becoming the top guy during the original brand split.

 

Seems pretty simple that someone could be the top guy on Raw and someone else would be the top guy on Smackdown but then just accepting the very simple logic of that (and how that would keep a top guy for each touring group) would eliminate hundreds of message board posts and tweets bitching about "omg devalued titles!"

 

Except that the top guy on Smackdown will almost inevitably be slotted as a B+ player, and just like the last time it leads to no one going to SD branded shows.

When Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio were the top stars on Smackdown, they were selling the most merch in the whole company or close to it.

[DMJ]

Could be dead wrong, but I always assumed the blue house shows did okay when Taker was still active too.

[goc]

 

 

 

Two champions not only repeats the mistakes of the last split, it dilutes their efforts to make Roman the Top Guy (since of course he'll be one of the champions).

If more than one person is the top star, then nobody is the top star.

 

Because that really hurt Cena from becoming the top guy during the original brand split.

 

Seems pretty simple that someone could be the top guy on Raw and someone else would be the top guy on Smackdown but then just accepting the very simple logic of that (and how that would keep a top guy for each touring group) would eliminate hundreds of message board posts and tweets bitching about "omg devalued titles!"

 

 

 

Except that the top guy on Smackdown will almost inevitably be slotted as a B+ player, and just like the last time it leads to no one going to SD branded shows.

 

That didn't become a problem until they tried to make Orton the top babyface on SD and then it turned around again once they put the title on Mark Henry. Smackdown was out drawing Raw a lot of times based off the strength of Rey as a draw and he was never even really presented as the top guy of the brand.

[victory]

I wonder if Smackdown will get a name change. Seems like a good time for it.

[Loss]

All the talk of Vince being full of ideas and very pumped up right now combined with a better WWE since Wrestlemania tells me Vince is tired of the "HHH should take over" talk and it has lit a fire under him, for better or worse.

[sek69]

I fear for what will become of Mauro with Vince being more heavily involved in producing Smackdown.

[Alucard]

I think they switched the champions' brand enough that the two champions usually felt on equal footing. the WWE title was SD from 02-05 then RAW from 05-08, SD from 08-09 with even HHH as the WWE Champ on Smackdown for most of 2008. I personally loved that run with stuff like the HHH/Hardy series and the shows were constantly feeling fresh. Looking back there's definitely a lot I loved about the split and it made the years stand out a lot more compared to the last couple years kind of blending together. It just seems like such a big change now since Raw is 3 hours and they've always needed most of the whole roster for that.

[goc]

I think they switched the champions' brand enough that the two champions usually felt on equal footing. the WWE title was SD from 02-05 then RAW from 05-08, SD from 08-09 with even HHH as the WWE Champ on Smackdown for most of 2008. I personally loved that run with stuff like the HHH/Hardy series and the shows were constantly feeling fresh. Looking back there's definitely a lot I loved about the split and it made the years stand out a lot more compared to the last couple years kind of blending together. It just seems like such a big change now since Raw is 3 hours and they've always needed most of the whole roster for that.

There are actually a lot of guys who are good who don't get on TV hardly at all. I think they definitely have the talent to do a brand split now. Guys like Titus, Swagger, The Colons, Heath Slater and guys of that ilk are guys who could do a lot more in a new brand split.

[The Chief]

Looking forward to the Dudley Boys split take 2. Repackaged D-Von and a Bubba singles run.

 

I'm well aware I'm the only one looking forward to this.

[goodhelmet]

A Bubba singles run is appealing since we know he can pull it off.

[Wahoos Leg]

I'd be totally down for a Bubba singles run, so long as they don't just split up a bunch of the other teams for shits and giggles.

 

I really enjoyed the split roster the first time around, and they actually made it matter, and I'm legitimately intrigued to see what they do and how they pull this off, which is more than I can say about the past couple years of WWE booking.

[RCS1988]

 

 

Raw absolutely has to go back to two hours. If they don't as a result of this then they never will.

 

It's USA's call, and they want it to be 3 hours. If it was WWE's call, they'd go back to 2 hours.

[The Chief]

 

 

 

Raw absolutely has to go back to two hours. If they don't as a result of this then they never will.

 

It's USA's call, and they want it to be 3 hours. If it was WWE's call, they'd go back to 2 hours.

 

 

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that!

[RCS1988]

Plus the secondary shows, WWE Superstars for the RAW brand and WWE Main Event for the Smackdown brand. Sort of like Heat & Velocity.

[Coffey]

I don't think that this Brand Split is going to help guys like John Cena, Roman Reigns or the already established vets like Brock or 'Taker. Whom is really going to shine here, IMO, is all the upper mid-carders currently trading wins with one-another. Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Rusev and guys like that. So it could be pretty fun to see some of those guys actually presented as World Title contenders/holders.

 

Really hope that Samoa Joe gets a shot on the main rosters. Even if his entrance theme is the drizzling shits.

[Strummer]

listening to Meltzer on the LAW and he seemed to strongly imply that this was a total USA Network move and forced upon WWE. USA was not happy with SD ratings

[Lee]

To elaborate on that last point a little, I believe what Dave said (at least on WOR) was that USA Network who called to move SmackDown to Tuesdays and go live, but that it was Vince who then got the impetus to do a brand split in order to try and give both shows a distinct feel. Personally, I suspect it's more likely that both shows will just read from the same playbook but claim they're totally unique because of the different players.

[pmo]

To elaborate on that last point a little, I believe what Dave said (at least on WOR) was that USA Network who called to move SmackDown to Tuesdays and go live, but that it was Vince who then got the impetus to do a brand split in order to try and give both shows a distinct feel. Personally, I suspect it's more likely that both shows will just read from the same playbook but claim they're totally unique because of the different players.

That's the biggest problem with the brand split in general. They aren't willing to really change the look and feel of the shows substantially. You would think after seeing the success of nxt, which has a different look and feel, they would realize the value of this.