WWE Brand Split News/Rumors/Discussion

[Cory]

Is that how they would do it? Live shows Monday and Tuesday?

[Fnord]

NEW YORK and STAMFORD, CONN – May 25, 2016 -- USA Network, the exclusive cable home to WWE's marquee properties, announced that its weekly SMACKDOWN show will air live – for the first time ever – and move to Tuesdays every week beginning July 19 from 8-10PM ET/PT. With the SMACKDOWN move, USA Network will now offer five hours of live WWE programming a week, including the weekly three-hour live WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW (airing Mondays from 8-11PM ET/PT), with each show featuring a distinct cast, unique storylines and a dedicated writing team.

That's what it says.

[Drama Queen]

There should still only be one champion or we go back to having meaningless multi-time champions or midcarders like swagger being called world champion.

[Cory]

6 hours of wrestling in 3 days (NXT)? Damn.

[Fnord]

And would they be showing Main Event on Thursdays or taking that out completely?

Monday RAW
Tuesday Smackdown
Wednesday NXT
Thursday Main Event
Friday Superstars

[Tezmission Black]

6 hours of wrestling in 3 days (NXT)? Damn.

And that doesn't count PPV once a week, that would add an extra 4 hours counting pre show.

[Alex Smiley]

And that doesn't count PPV once a week, that would add an extra 4 hours counting pre show.

20 once Wrestlemania 33 rolls around.

[BamBamBunglow]

Also, tuesday.... I can hear Dixie Carter screaming from here.

[Gravedigger]

And that doesn't count PPV once a week, that would add an extra 4 hours counting pre show.

Where are you coming up with weekly PPVs?

[¿PapaPancho?]

I would still want one singular champion

[Cory]

I get the reason why you'd only want one champion....but with them stating that each brand will be 'different' aka (distinct cast, unique storylines and a dedicated writing team.) it wouldn't make sense for only Raw to have the champion if that was the case. Why would you want to watch Smackdown if the biggest title they had ended up being the US Title? Unless they're clearly going to make Smackdown NXT 2.0 or something and maybe bring back the Cruiserweight Title and have that and IC title maybe on Smackdown.

I think revert back to the old way roughly, WWE Title, Women's Title and IC Title on Raw and US Title and WHC Title on Smackdown....plus the old WHC Title was IMO the best looking title WWE has ever had....so....much....gold.

[Drama Queen]

The champion could (should) be available to both shows.

The roster is not big enough to have two "world" champions. It was meaningless then and I don't see how it would be any different now. I would simply stop caring about titles again period.

[¿PapaPancho?]

The champion could (should) be available to both shows.

The roster is not big enough to have two "world" champions. It was meaningless then and I don't see how it would be any different now. I would simply stop caring about titles again period.

This.

[Alex Smiley]

I think people are forgetting the ORIGINAL setup:

• WWE (then-Undisputed) Champ did both shows
• Women's Champ did both shows
• The rest of the titles were divvied up between them

I think something along those lines works for this new brand split.

[Cory]

I completely disagree about the roster not being big enough. I'm not super in favour of adding another world title, but for the sake of throwing incredibly average writers a bone and giving them a title for a storyline rather them having to actually come up with intriguing storylines, I fear when everyone is back healthy and the cream from NXT gets their time to shine the roster will be incredibly overcrowded, and you'll get what we've been getting with the IC title which is constant multi-man matches that happen EVERY week because the writers struggle to have good non-title storylines (Corbin/Ziggler, Fandingo one, ect.).

Right now roughly what it looks like up to Summerslam:

WWE Title: Roman Reigns vs Seth Rollins vs MITB Winner (Cmon, Its gonna be Ambrose)
IC Title: Miz vs Cesaro
US Title: Rusev vs Cena
Tag Titles: New Day vs Enzo/Cass?
Womens Title: Charlotte vs Sasha Banks

So that means Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Randy Orton, Sheamus, AJ Styles, Balor Club, Brock Lesnar, Bray Wyatt, Austin Aries, Samoa Joe, and Nakamura are on the outside looking in (Aries and Nakamura probably 2017)

You know WWE is gonna run with The Shield in the WWE Title picture for as long as they can get it, and I think having another significant title on Smackdown would give us another big time angle to work with and one less storyline creative can fuck up.

TL:DR - I don't trust creatives booking without a title involved, and when everyone is healthy and the NXT call ups arrive, the roster is going to be stacked. Not saying it HAS to be another version of the world title, but something. The perfect thing would be a take on the Gift of the Gods title, but that would kinda make MITB/Royal Rumble messy.