WWE Needs the Brand Split to Return

By Tobey Johnson | Apr 27, 2015

Heading into the first pay per view after WrestleMania, the WWE has several wrestlers who are being booked poorly and seem to be stuck in neutral with a lack of creative writing to do anything with these superstars. Is it partly due to an overcrowded roster? If so, maybe it is time for the WWE to revisit the Brand split concept.

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The last several years it seems that the pre-WrestleMania plans have been rushed and thrown together poorly – now this year it seems that the post-WrestleMania plans are just stuck in the mud and that many superstars are just spinning their tires and going nowhere fast because they are being throw into stories with no substance and no ending to pull things together and have make sense.

Maybe it is time for the WWE to consider breaking the roster up again and have two brands to level things out.

Since Survivors Series, Dolph Ziggler has been kept at “Status quo” when he was put over heavily in the Survivor Series match for Team Cena beating Team Authority.

Dean Ambrose went from having the best feud the WWE has produced in several years with Seth Rollins, to a feud with Bray Wyatt that acted as only a series of matches to have two guys beat the tar out of each other and end with not much to remember. Then he was put into what started off as an interesting story with Wade Barrett for the Intercontinental Title, but the WWE added so other stars because they didn’t have anything for them, the feud got lost in the mess.

Breaking up the Wyatt family was rushed and I don’t think thought out very well. The idea of having the break-up to generate more stars than just Bray didn’t work and now Harper and Rowan are essentially fillers into establishing other wrestlers for their stories.

Ryback, I don’t even want to get started with. His booking has been so terrible since his WWE Title match vs. CM Punk in the cage at Hell in a Cell 2012. They bring him back and set him back up with a new push again as a face to seem like he was going to be the difference maker in the Team Cena vs. Team Authority Survivor Series match, only to be eliminated quickly.

For these reasons and so many more, I feel it is time that the WWE seriously consider going back to the Raw and SmackDown brand split. If they want to keep the one World Champion, fine, they just need to establish the Intercontinental and United States Championship’s as prestigious Titles.

When the WWE World Champion is in a program with the other’s brand No.1 contender – that brand doesn’t get lost without a main story to build on. That main story could be who is going after that No.1 contender’s spot which should be either the IC title or US title.

The brand draft was always fun to watch and wonder who was going to get traded and moved to the other brand. Remember when Cena was the surprise Raw pick and the crowd went crazy and Smackdown got the same with the selection of Batista to lead their brand.

With the WWE Network, there are plenty of ways to make the two brands stand out and get enough attention. With Smackdown moving to the USA network – there will be equal television time and respect given. The big four pay per views can have a joint brand event, with the secondary events being reserved for the respective brands.

Fans will not feel as cheated paying almost $50 for a pay per view that isn’t featuring all the top stars since most of the viewers are watching through the WWE Network. Those who aren’t, maybe this would be the push they need to fork over the $9.99 a month.

It just makes too much sense to do this and you will not have a lot of wasted talent getting senseless stories and others getting little to no time on the shows. More wrestlers will be featured more often and the fans will get a variety of stories and matches to watch.

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