WWE Draft 2016: Shane McMahon Needs to Be GM of SmackDown

With Smackdown moving to Tuesday nights, Shane McMahon needs to be the GM leading this new change to the show.

With the WWE Draft happening on July 19, the question is still out there on who will run both Raw and Smackdown. We have recently seen Teddy Long and Kane both petition to Stephanie and Shane McMahon their hopes to run the blue brand, but to no avail.

With the GM position for Smackdown remaining vacant. It seems likely that one McMahon will end up being the GM of RAW, while the other will be the GM of Smackdown.

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The question now arises as to which McMahon will run RAW, and which will run Smackdown? With Smackdown needing to bring in and keep an audience going forward, WWE needs to make Shane McMahon the GM of the blue brand.

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For the past few years, Smackdown has had trouble gaining and keeping an audience. Ever since the first brand extension ended in 2011, Smackdown had been seen as a secondary show compared to RAW.

Storylines generally don’t continue on SmackDown, and the causal fan could only watch RAW without missing key parts to a feud or storyline. The fact that Smackdown was pre-taped didn’t help its cause either, as well as going online to see the results.

With Smackdown going live, this will change the landscape for the brand going forward. New rosters will also help the show gain an audience, as some of their favorite stars will only be competing on the blue brand.

These improvements will certainly help the show but the biggest way they can draw an audience is by having the show ran by a face general manager, which needs to be WWE’s Prodigal Son. The company did a similar thing during the original brand extension in 2002.

Ironically WWE did this with Smackdown in 2002 with a face Stephanie McMahon (Yes, Believe it or not, Stephanie was a face at one time) running the show. Along with Paul Heyman leading the writing team on Smackdown, Stephanie helped make this the most entertaining show over RAW.

Having a face GM would help attract a crowd and keep them following Smackdown. Shane McMahon fits this bill perfectly as everyone is a fan of him. While many still want Shane to end up running RAW, it makes more sense for Stephanie to do so.

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RAW will always be the flagship show for WWE, as all the fans will continue to watch it. You can have a heel GM run the show and people will still watch it. In fact, most of the authority figures who have run RAW have been heels.

People might be tired of Stephanie but with RAW being the flagship show, the masses will still watch, even if they’re stuck with her. The same though can’t be said about SmackDown. If Stephanie ran Smackdown, it would be catastrophic. The roster for the show would have to be very strong for people to tune in.

McMahon running Smackdown would attract fans and keep them watching because of his presence. Shane might have come back to WWE to run RAW but now, it is better that he runs Smackdown.

With Shane leading the way of the new era, he needs to be GM that brings Smackdown back to relevance. If he runs Smackdown the show has a good chance to finally compete with RAW.

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With WWE investing a lot in Smackdown, they have to solidify this point on letting Shane McMahon become the general manager of the show.