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A couple of weeks ago on Raw, Triple H informed us that the decision had been made to bring the superstars from Smackdown onto each live Raw broadcast for the foreseeable future. The initiative, given the silly name of “Raw Supershow,” is kind of a big deal, even though it sort of isn’t. You could claim it to be lacking in the newsworthy department since we’ve seen Raw and Smackdown superstars go back and forth between shows for years with very little in the way of acknowledgement by the WWE. In that regard, you’d be right. However, the reason it is bigger than I think anyone has talked about up to this point is that it is a sign of the WWE actually acknowledging that they don’t have the roster that they did 9 years ago when they did the brand split in the first place. Keep in mind that the WWE has tried to sell the audience at large that there are two completely distinct brands, trying to get ratings boosts with draft lotteries and shows that feature both rosters, to boost PPV buys with storylines dedicated to brand supremacy (Bragging Rights, Survivor Series ’05), and to sell video games with Raw vs. Smackdown titles. All the while, the superstars have moved back and forth on a large percentage of the shows. The WWE is a stubborn entity. They will do the same thing over and over with similar results. So, I’m not saying that they are throwing in the towel on the brand extension, but I do think that they’re willingness to make Raw into a “Supershow” featuring both brands is a significant admission on their part that ratings aren’t good enough and their own roster isn’t deep enough to support two brands. They moved Smackdown to a Tuesday night live special and stacked it with a steel cage match and a bunch of Raw stars to see if they could spike a rating. They did; they’re experimenting. I like that. Smackdown ratings are terrible. They’re live attendance is terrible even for TV tapings. They show is high in quality, but they don’t have stars featured on that show that people have invested in. In a matter of weeks, we’ve seen the WWE tinker with their approach. That’s a good thing; no doubt about that. However, I think the WWE is reaching a point where it’s going to be HARD decision making time. I feel that they can go one of two ways: either end the split altogether and move forward or try to do the split the right way. Personally, I’ve always liked the split, in concept. I’ve largely disliked it, in execution. In past columns and a current series, I’ve tried to link wrestling to other sports organizations. Well, I think the brand split has largely had the same problems that Major League Baseball has with its All-Star game. The MLB – along with most sports leagues – suffers from free agents switching teams too easily and interleague play that waters down the allure of seeing players from different “conferences” playing against each other in an All-Star game. The WWE has wrestlers appear on each brand all the time and wrestler against each other far too frequently for anyone to care anymore if “Smackdown guys” appear on Raw or vice versa. It no longer matters. In a manner of speaking, both the MLB and WWE have it right that people want to see two entities go at it, but they both get it wrong because they want to force the issue and overdo it. The two highest Survivor Series buyrates of the last 10 years, mind you, were in 2001 and 2005 when it was WWE vs. WCW and Raw vs. Smackdown. This is no coincidence; people bought into the idea of seeing two dueling brands that want to be known as #1. Yet, overkill is the best way to kill a good thing. When we look back at the 9 ½ year history of the brand extension, I don’t think it was ever done quite like many had hoped. Instead of presenting a consistent, well thought out idea from the get-go, they changed things around just a couple of months into it. The championships split, the rosters became open for free agency, and it was a mess. The balance was never found between the two brands, as one always decimated the other in star quality and quantity (mostly in Raw’s favor, but early on for Smackdown). Then, they introduced the Draft Lottery to fanfare, but it turned out to be like free agency in the NBA or NFL – once you got used to seeing one guy on one team, that guy went to a different team. The lottery became overused and they tried to keep up the farce that there was actually some sort of brand loyalty; that there was really a rivalry there (I think there is a small one, but not anywhere near on the level that it could be). They’ve tried the big Raw vs. SD thing a few times, but half the guys on one team ended up on the other team the next year. If there was one thing that they got right, it was the inter-brand matches at Wrestlemania in 2004 and 2005 between wrestlers that had been on one brand during the majority of the brand extension’s existence. That proved that the concept could work, actually, but the mistakes far outweighed the successes. Much like with the Invasion angle, the WWE just simply dropped the ball. Looking at the problems listed in the above paragraph, I think the WWE started out with the chance to do it right, but it was always going to be an uphill battle. Splitting up that original 2002 roster was like splitting up the cast of Friends into two different sitcoms. Ross and Rachel were a pair that went together and were intricately linked; Monica and Chandler became a similar tandem. If you split the show, then you have to keep those two pairs together and the hardest decision becomes where do Joey and Phoebe go? You make that choice, you move on with the new shows, and you sacrifice the likely short-term ratings decline while building new characters that can grow the ratings. In the WWE, splitting up Austin and Rock was a no-brainer. They were the cornerstones. The other top stars in the WWE were Triple H, Undertaker, Kurt Angle, and Chris Jericho. By and large, they did well to split them up evenly. Triple H, Rock, and Angle on Smackdown; Austin, Taker, and Jericho on Raw. Had it stayed that way, perhaps they could’ve made it work. Unfortunately, everything went to hell in a hand basket pretty quickly with Austin and Rock both leaving. The WWE panicked, change things around, and the rest is history. Earlier, I mentioned that the WWE is going to be faced with a tough decision in the near future: abandon the brand split ship or do it the right way. Well, doing it the right way would entail them actually shutting down the jumping from roster to roster, one set of titles for the tag teams and divas, the draft lotteries, and the numerous multi-brand episodes of TV every year. I’m no wrestling expert, but I’m a business owner that understands the simple model of how to make money. They’ll need to recommit to two distinct rosters. Cena is the cornerstone on Raw. Orton is the main guy on SD. The top secondary guys in the WWE right now are CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, The Miz, and Sheamus. Three of them are on Raw, so let’s move Mysterio back to Smackdown to even it out. Based on those core guys, you build around them with newer stars. NEW stars is the way to keep the product fresh and interesting, combined with equal emphasis placed on each show by the writing teams, which there has rarely if ever been through the first ten years of the split. It’s on the WWE to build their way back up using the special attraction guys like Triple H, Undertaker, and especially the Rock to elevate their crop of rising stars. If they freeze the rosters and allow a semi-legitimate free agency period every 18 months to two years for only a select number of guys, then this SD vs. Raw thing can actually work and they can actually get a BIG time PPV out of it every year in Bragging Rights and inter-brand Wrestlemania matches. BUT…if they aren’t going to do it right, then just scrap the concept and let’s move on. Unify all the titles, leave Smackdown on Fridays as a taped show that gives fans the wrestling that they don’t see on Raw, which would be used largely to do the brunt of the mic work (as usual) to build the PPV matches. Maybe that’s the smart choice. Did you notice that the top six guys in the WWE right now includes Miz, Sheamus, and CM Punk? The roster is very thin right now. If they were to end the split, this would be the perfect time to do it because it isn’t like we’re only going to get doses of Triple H, Angle, Taker, Edge, Cena, Batista, and the like, as has largely been an argument against ending the split in past years. There are plenty of spots open. They just need guys to step up and fill them. Alberto Del Rio, Dolph Ziggler, Christian, Mark Henry, Cody Rhodes, etc. seem perfectly fit to join the main-event ranks as top guys. Of course, the changes to the TV product, as a whole, need to continue, as a renewed focus on getting away from the status quo and making things interesting, consistently, is one of the WWE’s top problems in terms of ratings decline. Yet, it might be a lot easier for them to continue making those changes if they only had to write for one consolidated roster. I’m curious to know what you think… I think the WWE can make the roster split work, but I don’t have much confidence in their ability to do it the right way. They seem to be stuck in that same illogical mindset that the MLB has suffered from for years. While wondering why their ratings suck and the interest in their product continues to decline, they just keep doing the same things and not adapting to the changing times. They don’t market their players correctly and their league is suffering. Soccer and football market their players PERFECTLY! Wrestling doesn’t. Wrestling is more like Major League Baseball. So, I think they scrap the brand split and try to put their best foot forward with one roster. Trying to make two separate rosters work isn’t working. If they could figure out how to do the roster split, then that’d be one thing but I don’t think that they can.
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