Brand Split: For or Against?

   I may be in the minority here, but I've never been a fan of the brand split in WWE, whether it be the current incarnation or the original back in 2002.  Ultimately, it's all the same company so the competition really doesn't exist, especially when they've made it clear that they care much more for Raw then they do Smackdown.  There was a time last year when Smackdown was a better show than Raw in my opinion.  Also, during the time Paul Heyman was writing for Smackdown years ago, it was the better show.  Back then, there was the Smackdown Six, which included Kurt Angle, Edge, Rey Misterio, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, and Brock Lesnar.  Other than that, it's not so much that Raw was better, but clear that Raw was cared for more.  There will never be a time when these two shows will be treated as equals, even though Smackdown finally went live as well.

   A company with brands competing against each other just doesn't make sense to me.  For instance, when WCW was bought by Vince McMahon, many of us thought it would be used as a second brand and looked at as WCW. However, that was not the case, and due to WWE not shelling out enough money and/or wrestlers waiting out their AOL/Time Warner contracts, we got treated to a piss poor "Invasion."  No wonder Sting didn't want to join then!  Although, to be fair, as much as I respect them, Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page, were not as well known as Sting was.  Yes, Sting ended up losing to Triple H years later, which I still disagree with by the way, but back then he was still a major star and had a bunch of good years left. 

   Some speculate that the reason we never got a WCW brand was due to the night Raw became Nitro for one night only.  Booker T defended the WCW World Title against Buff Bagwell, who flat out did not care and was fired shortly thereafter for it.  McMahon did not purchase any main WCW commentators, except for Scott Hudson, who called the show that night with Arn Anderson.  Arn was a great talker in his day as a member of the Four Horsemen, but commentary was just not his thing.  One thing was promising, however, because in the storyline, Shane McMahan bought WCW out from under his father, which was carried out during the infamous Nitro/Raw simulcast.  Unfortunately, some of these factors are possibly why WCW was never turned into a brand.  Regardless, I still think they should have at least tried, especially because eventually many WCW wrestlers finally came to the WWF.  By November, Ric Flair was there.  By February of 2002, the nWo's Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash showed up, followed by Rey Misterio that Summer and Scott Steiner in the Fall.  A few months later, Goldberg signed.  

   In 2002. the WWF's roster was larger than it had ever been, due to the WCW contracts that were purchased, along with ECW's end, in which several ECW stars also showed up, such as Rob Van Dam. Just after WrestleMania XVIII, the storyline had Ric Flair owning half of the WWF, along with Vince McMahon.  Linda McMahon then decided there would be what was known as a Brand Extension.  Vince would run Smackdown and Flair would run Raw, with each choosing superstars in a Draft.  It was a promising concept so I tried to give it a chance.  It started to go south when they decided to split up the Dudley Boys.  Later on, the APA was split up as well.  None of these four men needed that at this point.  Not only that, the Tag Team Titles remained on Smackdown, with Champions Billy & Chuck, while the Hardy Boys were on Raw with no Championship to go for.  

   At the time, the WWF Champion was to go between brands and defend the Title, but other Titles were split up, some the property of Raw, and others the property of Smackdown.  To combat this situation, they brought in a second World Title, the US Title, and another set of Tag Team Titles.  They just unified the WWF and WCW Titles months earlier, only to have many Titles yet again.  Even with the elimination of the European and Hardcore Titles, there were still too many.  After Vince got full ownership back from Flair, he assigned two General Managers to the brands.  Stephanie McMahon became the General Manager for Smackdown, while Vince chose Raw's General Manager to be none other than the man that used to run WCW, Eric Bischoff.

  A brand split is something that if done right, could have worked out.  Splitting up tag teams aside, the split wasn't taken seriously.  People kept jumping from brand to brand, making it seem like a company signing a talent from another company.  If you're going to do a brand split, you can't half-ass it, you have to make it seem rock solid.  For a few years, despite a few brand moves every once in a while, it worked somewhat. Eventually, talents started showing up on both shows, ruining the aspect of two World Champions, even though I hated that anyway.  In September of 2002, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar signed exclusively with Smackdown, leaving Raw without a World Champion.  Not to be outdone, Bischoff brought back the old WCW World Title and presented it to Triple H.  That was the Title of a dead company and its lineage basically started right then and there. Meanwhile, back in December of 2001, Chris Jericho had defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock that night to become the Undisputed WWE World Heavyweight Champion.  Unfortunately, Jericho was not treated as he should have, being undermined by Stephanie McMahon and a glorified dog watcher, but that's another topic for another time.  The point is, just nine months after they Unified the Titles, it was undone. 

  By 2013, it was just a mess, with superstars showing up wherever they pleased.  During the year, it was decided that the brand split would end, or at least there would be a unification of Championships.  By this point, the Tag Team Titles had already merged, and the Diva's Title over took the storied Women's Title, while the two mid-card Titles, the Intercontinental and US, remained. At TLC in December, WWE Champion Randy Orton defeated World Champion John Cena to become the Undisputed WWE World Heavyweight Champion.  I was happy, as having one World Title would make it mean something again.  

   In 2016, the brand split was brought back, and I was none too pleased.  The draft took place in July and wrestlers went to their separate brands again.  Since WWE Champion Dean Ambrose was a Smackdown superstar, WWE created the Universal Championship, which is currently held by Brock Lesnar.  In August, Finn Balor defeated Seth Rollins to become the first Universal Champion. Unfortunately, he was injured during the match and the Title was held up.  Kevin Owens won it soon after, dropping it to Goldberg in February of 2017, who subsequently lost it to current Champion Lesnar.  As far as I'm concerned, the belt means nothing to me and is not a real World Title.  

  

  Back at WrestleMania that year, a new stride was taken in the Women's Division, as the Diva's Title was finally phased out and the Women's Championship was brought back, won by Charlotte Flair.  In September, since Charlotte was on Raw, Smackdown created its own Women's Title, and its inaugural Champion was Becky Lynch, diluting the importance of the Women's Title.  Also, Smackdown created its own Tag Team Titles as the Tag Team Champions at the time, The New Day, were Raw superstars.  Smackdown's first Tag Team Champions were Heath Slater and Rhino.  Once again, shortly after this, it started to fall apart again, with several switches here and there.  Now, John Cena is a free agent, roaming from brand to brand, negating the very idea of the brand split.  WWE owns most of the wrestling world so they would be free to have Smackdown under a different banner, with the illusion of it being a separate company.  Humor me a little, that's all I ask!  Beyond that, I just cannot get behind a brand split.

   Since there is a ton of WWE programming, WWE could pull off what the NWA was at one time. The NWA was the ultimate wrestling organization during most of the Territory Days.  There were multiple Territories around the world and you'd see wrestlers go from one to the other, never overstaying their welcome.  Special attractions like Andre the Giant and Abdullah the Butcher often did this.  The World Champion would often travel to different Territories and defend the Title.  For instance, you'd see Ric Flair defend against Carlos Colon in his Puerto Rican Territory, World Wrestling Council.  With many brands at its disposal, WWE could do something similar.  NXT has almost become its own brand, and isn't just seen as Developmental.  Meanwhile, 205 Live is floundering and they created a UK Champion with a great tournament, but no brand for the Champion to call his own.  At least create the illusion that there are separate companies.  Even though we would still know everything was under the WWE banner, it would at least make a little more sense.  Otherwise, if it stays the way it is, I just flat out don't like it.

   Some that like it will point out that if not for the brand split, we may not have seen some wrestlers finally rise to the top.  Without the brand split, Title reigns for Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Christian, and Mark Henry, who finally hit his stride 15 years into his WWE career, would not have happened.  It also created new stars in John Cena, Randy Orton, and Batista, among others. However, the brand split also gave us abysmal Champions like Jack Swagger and the Great Khali.  Without it, we wouldn't have had to sit through an almost year-long reign of JBL.  Let's be honest, there is no way Jinder Mahal would have won the WWE Title if there was no brand split.  I could get behind this Territory concept but right now, the brand split is just dumb.  With WWE already giving in to duel-branded Pay-Per-Views again, it's only a matter of time before this split ends as well, hopefully giving way to rightfully only one World Champion once again.  Thoughts?

If you have any further thoughts on this topic, let me know in comments.  Heck, let us all know on The WAR Report podcast, every Tuesday at 7PM EST on YouTube, brought to you by tagmeadate.com, the first and only dating site for wrestling fans.  Go to askthewarreport@gmail.com or #askthewarreport.  For TagMeADate members, our Android and Apple apps are vastly approaching so stay tuned!
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