2 Weeks In, How Is WWE Doing Post-Brand Split?

With two weeks of Raw and two weeks of Smackdown Live programming now complete since the brand split happened, there have been some improvements within WWE’s weekly programming.

As some examples of that:

– Freshened Up Roster – With the brand split came new feuds, new pairings and some repackaging. Catch phrases aside, there aren’t a lot of things that a WWE fan can say that they are tired of.

– Talent Returns – Rhyno has made a few cameos. Jinder Mahal is back. Shelton Benjamin is coming back. Curt Hawkins is rumored to be coming back. It’s great to see some talent coming back, not only because it’s fresh blood, but because these are people that can help put the next generation of talent over.

– Brand Identities – The two shows are doing what they can to look and feel very different than one another. Previously, Smackdown was largely rooted in recaps of Raw and rematches of little significance. They both now give reasons to watch.

– Squash Matches – Every now and then comes a new competitor that warrants jobbers in their introductory matches. Ryback had them, as did The Ascension. We now have two competitors that have relied on them for two weeks, Braun Strohman and Nia Jax. Both effectively used the enhancement talent to not only look better, but these segments also had memorable things to them. Braun’s opponents cut scared promos before the matches, and Nia Jax pulls up opponents after they are already done with.

– Heath Slater – The storyline of Heath Slater running his mouth and then getting squashed by someone on a surprise appearance was done a few years back. Vader, Rikishi, Sycho Sid, and Bob Backlund all beat Heath; I believe Doink The Clown was the one surprise victory against a legend. This is a great way to keep Heath Slater visible, which in turn helps other talent get over.

– Charity Tie-Ins – So far, we have been preached to less about social causes and charity work. For someone like me, who tunes into WWE largely to forget about news and politics, this is a very positive thing.

– Less John Cena – Both Raw and Smackdown used to be heavily-rooted around John Cena. Now that John Cena is only on Smackdown — forgetting that Cena has done post-Raw dark matches two weeks in a row — and there are bigger storylines happening, there is less John Cena overexposure. In turn, this might be what helps get the crowd to refrain from booing him.

However, there are some obvious areas for improvement:

– Women’s Division – It’s very obvious that the women’s roster on Raw has plenty more going on than the roster on Smackdown. It’s not that most of the women’s division featured on Smackdown aren’t talented, it’s that they’ve never gotten over because they have little to no experience on the main roster. Too much new blood.

– Tag Team Division – Smackdown Live also has a much weaker tag team division than Raw. I suppose this is likely to happen when only one show has a particular title belt. However, American Alpha — whose debut was excellent, as expected — don’t have much to work with on the Smackdown roster at the moment.

– NXT Talent Call-Ups – Related to my comment about Smackdown’s women’s division, some NXT stars are being elevated too fast. Baron Corbin has a great theme song and a cool look, but I don’t think he was ready for the main roster. Apollo Crews is an excellent worker, but his character has not been established beyond the fact that he smiles a lot. Alexa Bliss wasn’t doing much in NXT right before her call-up. Carmella is very talented, but she also didn’t have much going on before her call-up, and her Staten Island gimmick isn’t going to get over in most of the country; Enzo and Cass, on the other hand, were very over in NXT and were introduced in a talking segment that made them look great.

– Too Many Tweeners – The two main events at this year’s Summerslam are between two babyfaces; I am referring to Brock Lesnar versus Randy Orton and Dean Ambrose versus Dolph Ziggler.

from some things I've heard there are talks of adding a SD exclusive tag and woman's title, if they do this they are running the risk of over saturating the product with titles, I still really wish they would have drafted asuka to SD with her title, maybe strip her of it and do what raw did with rollins and tournament for a new woman's title with Asuka being already in the match.

As for tag team they could definitely use more on SD if those rumors are true. I'm gonna spell it wrong but Gargano and Ciampa would be great tag or singles the CWC match was for me a match of the year candidate, absolutely great, I think which ever team wins the titles at take over will remain in NXT and the other hopefully will move up to beef up the tag division on SD

I completely agree with the tweeners on SD Dolph and Dean did some heel and face work and while I really like Dolph's performance I don't think he would work as a tweener, he will have to just be a cocky face.

With returns I don't really like Rhyno but the others I'm happy to hear about.

Who will go the furthest to win it all will be Dolph and Dean's angle, and the answer will probably be Bray Wyatt.

I like the fact that there's 5 significant matches for SummerSlam and none of them are done to death fueds.

i think there going to be pushing dolph as the underdog and pulls of shock wins after this weeks SD. i think dean will win at SS and Wyatt will attack other than that im not sure who will face off against Dean

thedmd wrote:

from some things I've heard there are talks of adding a SD exclusive tag and woman's title, if they do this they are running the risk of over saturating the product with titles,

The thing is it will need its own tag and womens title if they are going to be separate the tag team and women division is very limited

No AJ or Cena on SD this week. Not much of anything, really.

The Main Camera works for promos, but still makes matches look baaaaad.

Main event will have to be good to make up for it, but it won't be. It's anotherrrrrr tag match made up of rivals pairing up. May as well not have a match, just brawl randomly and wait for the ppv. "Ziggler just tagged himself in by the way" No shit Otunga, we've seen it infinite times before

over saturation of matches, time to go "UFC" and keep opponents away from each other a bit more often? Build a genuine suspense over time.

Use the mid cards more effectively for warm up matches vs the current stars, throw in some upsets even, before the big fights, to keep people on their toes and give others some credibility

Dean Ambrose hiding by the ring casually scratching his face. Woop new camera angle, show that shit we shouldn't see

After watching the first week of WWE programming post-brand split, I was very optimistic. To me, those were the best episode of both Raw and Smackdown in a long time. The two brands were made to be very different from one another, and that was a great thing from my perspective.

Following the second week, I was still optimistic about the overall WWE product. Sure, there were some obvious faults showing at this point, but there were undeniable improvements when comparing such to the majority of episodes of Raw or Smackdown from 2013 forward.

This week, I am even less enthusiastic than last week because some of WWE’s bad habits have reemerged. Some examples of that:

– Length Of The Show – Practically everyone would agree that three hours is too long for Raw. So in the presumed last segment when they announced a match for the always-entertaining Cesaro, I was floored. The show had that much filler and still couldn’t be capped at three hours. To top it all off, if you were in attendance, there was also a dark match to watch, bring the overall show near four hours. I can’t think of anything I like doing for more than three hours.

– Roman Reigns’ Push – Reigns is a talented performer, but constant tests over the past two years and change show that he is not “the guy.” If he still gets a mixed reaction when going against Rusev, following Rusev yelling anti-‘Murica things, it’s clear that this isn’t working. Character reinvention is needed.

– Wedding Segments – Speaking of Rusev, when there were cakes seen in the ring, who didn’t know that Rusev or Lana were going into the cake? Wedding segments in WWE for the past few years have been especially lousy. Taking it a step further, what is the logic in a wedding segment if the two characters are already married and such has been acknowledged? To save time and expense, they simply could have shown the photo or video montage of the wedding, then had Roman Reigns interrupt it.

– Celebrity Tie-Ins – Diddy is in rare company when in comes to record sales and entrepreneurship. He also has some great acting accomplishments to his credit. However, he has not been a popular artist in well over a decade. What did his appearance on Raw do to help the show? Did anyone tune in specifically because he would be on? I get that WWE wants to be on great terms with celebrities, but this could be done in better ways.

– Recaps – Understandably there is a major PPV to sell this month with Summerslam. But if Raw and Smackdown are different brands, the shows shouldn’t be recapping one another so much. Especially if that content can also be watched or streamed in various forms.

The sudden improvements and then the sudden changes back to prior habits makes me wonder if there are disagreements backstage. Could a certain person have relinquished control for a week or two, and then taken back lead creative direction? Or could the point have been to get higher ratings for a few weeks to woo new advertisers? Right now, the “new era” tag is questionable.

On the upside, Smackdown last night did finally give more time to the women’s and tag team divisions, placing more emphasis on the new NXT call-ups. Eva Marie was also used very well, showing potential for her to be a top character in the near-future. Heath Slater is also being used in an entertaining way. Also, the heel GM storyline is nowhere in sight at the moment.

What are you're thoughts though, Bosch? Lol

I convinced myself the wedding segment would go down like this.

Rusev smitten
Roman Rude
Cake on Roman
Rusev laugh
Roman Spear
Roman miss
Rusev crush
And then if you need the shot of Lana in cake for TMZ Rusev could have shown his playful side, you know the thing he'd have if he was a character with depth and not just a soviet tool who got Lana because they both hate america.

Just for something a bit different than the norm, but it went exactly like everyone else expected, so that was shit. People might like Roman more if he'd fucked up, but THEN overcome the following mockery to go on to win the match at SS

You know, it took a few minutes to imagine a scenario and write it on here via a phone. Ffs, CREATIVE TEAM lol. a head writer with 2 others helping is be the tested method.

At least Raw had Dr. Anderson and Dr Gallows to save the weeks entertainment segments

i think this week was awful like i said went right back to its old habits, for two weeks ive hardly fast forwarded anything and this week was right back to it all being fast forwarded, i think smackdown is a lot better though and better than raw. I just hate the 3 hours its way too long and alot of crap pilled in to make up for it.

When "Indy guys" and your home grown wrestlers consistently come out with better creative content than your 'scooby doo' creative team

All you really need is a show writer and just let the more creative wrestlers fill in the gaps. The foundations are there, most wrestlers that are wrestling fans just so happen to be creative

i suppose with Raw the crowd was completely dead didnt help it. Heath was the star of SD for me this with his 2 kids i mean 4 i mean 7 hahaha that cracked me up. amborse dirt deeds on ziggler was too obvious. But glad the tag divison and womens got more time but they are very limited.

I get what you're saying about Raw generally. I wouldn't watch it live at 3 hours unless it was on a good run and was can't miss tv and I was in the US, but 3 hours isn't the problem. In the US time zones you watch a bit and flick over to other stuff, everywhere else you can fast forward. The problem is people thinking that's the problem. Smacksown has historically been just as bad and worse at 2 hours. All that matters is content quality, and that fell off a cliff this week

One wwe Creative team success is Eva Marie, the butt of a joke that no one gets. She can't wrestle........

although that clearly has the Mcmahon name plastered all over it, so probably not even TEAM writing

i think Marie will be the face of the smackdown womens division which is ashame so many good actual female wrestlers.

Smackdown was pretty good this week.

In WWE overall there has been a huge increase in genuinely funny moments, actual personality seeping back into wrestlers and shows, but anything Heath Slater does is great and now with Rhyno completely dead panning while Heath weaves his magic it's just next level. Heath now has a random wife in a trailer, serving cheese wiz and crackers to Rhyno WTF haha. And on talking Smack you can tell they are getting some good chemistry. Renee seems to be able to gel all this type of stuff together too.

There just seems to be a shift in creative at times. I'd not be shocked to find out if E+C have been helping people out along the way. Either the writers or just spit balling with the talent. And that goes for the serious stuff and the humourous stuff