Pro Wrestling News - Why WWE Brand Split is a Failure
In 1997, pro wrestling was booming. WCW and WWE (the then WWF), in heavy competition Home equity line of credit Monday nights, were both getting superb ratings with millions of viewers each night. They were selling Pay-Per-Views. More importantly, they were both putting on great television.
You could change the channel between The Rock and Hulk Hogan on the same night, the two biggest pro wrestling draws ever. You could see Undertaker’s Ministry, then flip over and watch the nWo. Both WWE and WCW had an amazing depth of talent and both had captivating storylines mini skirts back up the wrestling in the ring.
That wouldn’t last. WCW got worse and worse, beginning with the Kevin Nash “fingerpoke of doom”, where he dropped the WCW Title Otoqycitvcpeu Hulk Hogan a few seconds into the match when Hogan poked him in the chest. Nash fell to the mat and let Hogan pin him. Fans felt jipped. There was another incident where Eric Bischoff spoiled the end of a taped Raw, airing against a live Nitro, telling everyone that Mick Foley would win the Title over on Raw that night. Needless to say, tons of fans switched over to watch the fan favorite Foley win the belt, and that was the beginning of the WCW ratings slump that they would never recover from.
WWE remained entertaining due to the talent of its roster, including The Rock, Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and more. The booking was sometimes awful (anyone remember Katie Vick?), however the product remained strong. WCW continued its slide and eventually collapsed to be bought out by WWE.
Then WWE had the ill-fated Invasion angle, where WCW and ECW stars were fighting with WWE stars. Unfortunately, many of the WCW ’stars’ were quickly jobbed out, like Diamond Dallas Page and Scott Steiner. WWE now had a monopoly on the pro wrestling business, but the ratings and PPV buy numbers were only going down.
Bad booking made worse television, and many ECW and WCW fans were disgruntled to see their favorite wrestlers jobbed out (I feel that WWE could have used Raven better than they did, as I followed him in his ECW days). I still watched the WWE though, at least for the awesome wrestling from the likes of Kurt Angle that was happening around that time. And The Rock. That guy is freakin’ amazing.
The invasion angle ran its course, and the WWE first introduced the Brand Split in the middle of 2002. Different stars would be used exclusively on each of their shows, Raw and Smackdown. They had car insurances quote assimilated the former WCW and ECW, so this worked well as a way to use their over bloated roster effectively. Lesser stars would get more time on their individual brand because there wasn’t a top card traveling from show to show.
Today the Brand Split doesn’t work. The WWE roster is nothing like what it was in 2002. The WWE only has perhaps 8 or 9 wrestlers that you could reasonably put a World Title on, they had more like 35 back in 2002. They don’t have as many purely entertaining wrestlers who can go in the ring, and their talent is spread way too thin with three brands. I tend to watch Raw for Hardy, Chris Jericho, and a little bit of Mr. Kennedy and Santino Marella. I don’t watch Smackdown though, it just isn’t very entertaining. I don’t want to watch Vicki Guerrero. I don’t want to watch Mark Henry. I don’t want to watch Big Daddy V. The only decent talent with any chance to draw on Smackdown are Edge, Rey Mysterio, Undertaker and MVP. Those guys just aren’t enough to stop me from going out on Friday nights.
Unify your roster, WWE. Unify all titles to have one World Title, one midcard Title, and one set of Tag Titles. Make all of your talent work all of your televised shows - even if they refuse to work Tuesdays.
By the way WWE, I’d watch Smackdown for Hardy and Jericho.
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