Report: Talent Worried Following Brand Split End on Raw

Last night, for those who missed it, Triple H announced that for at least the foreseeable future, the brand split has ended on the Raw brand, and the show will now feature stars from Smackdown as well.

PWInsider.com is reporting that several mid-lower card talents were said to be worried following the announcement last night, as they fear their spot on Raw might be in jeopardy in order to make room for top Smackdown talent on the Monday night show.

While it remains to be seen exactly which Smackdown talents will end up appearing on Raw on a weekly basis, and we still don't know if the brand consolidation will affect Smackdown as well, this new "Raw SuperShow" initiative definitely has some talent worried that they might be released.

I think it's for the best. The brand rivalry has been over for like a year or two already. That's why WWE wanted THQ to change the game name from SvR to something else.

It's way overdue, and I'm glad it's over. The only question I have is how long will they keep two tiles for each brand?! Perhaps we'll see a title unification and/or another one being dropped.

It's time to move forward people!

Here's a genius idea: Go back to the unified type of roster that you had before 2002, and pretend like this "brand extension" crap never happened. The supposed rivalry between Raw and Smackdown was never (and could never have been) a decent replacement for WCW vs. WWF.

Just when I was cool with the brand split.

I see where your coming from Silva, but IMO I feel having TWO world titles is degrading the overall championship. "Oh, Undertaker is champ on SD owning left right and center....Lucky Miz is WWE champion on Raw, easy title reign!"



Thats what I liked about pre 2002. If Undertaker was champ, thats who you had to beat and no one else. He was the top dog of the entire WWE, no question, because he had the title over the Rock, Triple H, Lesnar, Austin, Goldberg, etc.



Merge the titles at this year's survivor series (Raw vs SD) match. Merge the US/IC title because IMO they are contradictory. There is the US champion...Then the "Intercontinental Champion" which in meaning means champion of the world, not just United States. Also isn't intercontinental the same as a world champion? Sers lol..



Have the Undisputed Title, IC Title, Divas Title & Tag Titles. Then bring back the Hardcore and/or the European title to give guys something to fight for, and the cruiserweight title.

no i'd say keep the US title around and just add the Cruiserweight title back

never liked the US title. not as Much history

There's way too many belts, and they've all have increasingly become pointless.

One of the constant arguments by fans is that the mid-card is weak. Well, of course it is! Two belt. Very few contenders for the belts. Yet, people want the brand split to continue?

They'll argue that guys will get lost in the mix. Well, exactly how many guys are doing anything right now?

As talent has disappeared over the years, so too did the ability to even have a decent mid-card.

You throw Ziggler, Rhodes, Swagger, A-Ry, D. Bryan. With possibly, Drew Mac, Zeke, J. Gabriel, Curt Hawkins, Barrett (just a thought) - there's you mid-card.

Also, you get different feuds, new tag teams. Don't complain about wanting change, then when something is being put on the table with the possibility to make change... you shut it down.

WWE has the talent. Let's give them chance to see if this idea can maximize it.... or at least do something better than what we've seen in many years.

I think they should go BACK to single brand PPV's. It's where ALL superstars got a shine and the main event meant something.

When SD had 4 PPV's and Raw had PPV's, they were forced to make more fueds, they were forced to get more people on the card, they were using less and Raw stars on SD (only when Survivor Series came around)

I truly feel WWE should go back to that. Because they HAD to fill a PPV card for smackdown back then, which means, Smackdown HAD to have at least 7 feuds going on. Now SD gets like 2 matches max on every PPV card. Because no one is focusing on the brand and they are too dependent of Raw Stars.


I'm against the whole brand split ending. But i think they should go back to having brand only PPPV's, because honestly, Cena main events 9 of the 12 PPV's each year, and that's like fucking annoying.

Then is when the US title was defended regularly, we got SD diva fueds constantly without even a title the cruiserweight title was defended regularly, the Tag Team titles got defended regularly. Why can't we go back to that? IMO was the best thing ever. I got to see everyone. Their were enough non-title fueds to go around...and even the lower carders got minor PPV roles outside of being in the royal rumble.

That's my take.

This is years ago when there was more depth - more experienced guys who could deliver a good mid-card performance.

Too many guys have left, and WWE has shown they have trust issues with younger guy. There would be less pressure to be main event stars if there's a fuller roster with more experienced guys slowly handing things over to the young guns. If you go back to 2002-2005, you'll see that guys like Orton, Cena, Brock, Edge all had top notch guys to work with, learn from, and get better as they were establishing themselves as household names. Booker, Benoit, Jericho, Rock, Austin, Taker, Angle, Foley. All these guys had a big role in helping get over guys who were ready to become the next main eventer, or who were relatively new to the sport.

WWE doesn't have many of those guys now, as they're slowly becoming extinct. It will take some time, but it's bound to happen, sooner than later. as so many of the guys WWE leans to are approaching the finish line.

I don't see how this can be a negative thing.

Because it means 25 to 30% of the roster will be cut.

It means a cycle of people will be featured on 2of WWE's programming on a weekly basis. It's going to become over exposure.

It means the championship will be tossed around to even less people now. The main event will be same people. (well worse than now)

Scrambe matches, Elimination chamber matches, will always be the same 6 people.

Right now, as a mid carder, you get your rare shot at the gold. Dolph, Drew, Kofi, Miz, Swagger, Morrison, Sheamus....they got their taste of main event. With the main event becoming MORE exclusive than it already is,most those guys don't stand a chance.

Also, Look at Christian, finally got his break, but he'll fall even lower down the ladder with punk, Cena, Orton, HHH, Rey, Big Show, mark Henry, Kane...etc.

Also R-Truth, Alberto Del Rio, would have never gotten their shots if they had to go through all those names first.

In other words, it's going to be HARDER, to see who can succeed as main eventers because they'l have less chances to reach higher on the card.

Jericho wants to come back, making their chances even smaller. And so it continues.

It's reason why many never a world championship run before. Because the Main event was too exclusive.

The main event scene in the WWE is ALREADY too exclusive and limited to certain people as we speak, removing one championship will just make it near impossible to break out.

That's just me, i'm against it.

It's a different time now. It's not working. And you talk about overexposure: well, what do you think is happening now? Regardless of what show they're on, it's the same thing with Cena, Orton, and Mysterio. You're booked in a program with one of these three, and you're buried. Plus, like every other week there's one of WWE's 3-hour specials where we get to see the same 'ol squash matches and pointless promos to make those three look good.

DO you honestly believe that if things stay the same, or if they'd go back to branded ppvs, we'd see much change? The guys who were established enough were the ones to be in title matches and title-hunt story lines. Those youngsters of that time didn't have as much pressure as the young'ns do now, as they're thrown right into the fire... and when they're not impressive enough, they're tossed to the side and begin jobbing their asses off. Some, eventually to be cut.

Since the short term focus is still going to be on the who's who, this would be a great opportunity to build up your next stars on the mid-card and tag teams. Do you think some of the current and past stars like Cena, Orton, Rock, HHH, Edge would have developed as well as they have into credible stars if they hadn't had the opportunity to work their way up? The list of huys WWE wanted tried pushing then put it to a stop because they were too green, or not smooth enough on the mic, is amazing.

Kevin, to add to your point about using brand specific PPVS, which I agree entirely with, another thing it means is that for example, Raw will go without a PPV for a month, meaning we don't have to rush title matches or other matches onto the card, also allowing for more title matches on the show.



I liked the days when mid carders like Hurricane could defeat the Rock (Despite a lil help).

Just imagine if the next PPV was a Smackdown only PPV we'd HAVE to book 8 matches:

Randy Orton vs. Christian (Main event tile match)

Mark henry vs. Sheamus

Cody Rhodes vs. Ted Dibiase (IC Title match)

The Uso's vs. Johhny Curtis & his partner of choice (Jindar & Khali come out after the match and take out The uso's) building a tag division??

Justin Gabriel vs. Trent Barretta vs. tyson Kidd vs. Daniel bryan (CW title maybe??)

Alicia Fox vs. Natalya (Grudge match)

Kane vs. Wade Barrett?

Ezikiel vs. Heath Slater

Keep in mind you still have Yoshi Tatsu, Brodus Clay and the Divas (AJ, Kaitlyn, Tamina and Rosa)

theid have to feature all these guys on SD weekly just to build strong enough feuds for the PPV. And honestly with names like kane, Mark henry, sheamus, orton, Daniel, Wade, Ezikiel (they seem to like th guys) is reason enough to watch the PPV (keep in mind Raw has more BIGGER names SD could probably get 2 more) and bam.

I honestly miss those days, it was refreshing to see a new batch of people at PPV's and not the same old same old every PPV.

it also means we can have a rest from seeing the same main event from the last 3-5 months for eg Christian v Orton

exactly lol, every main event has been Orton vs. Christian AND Cena vs. whoever.

almost everyone thisyear..not funny.

I hate miz...but i was damn happy to see him as champ and nOT wrestle Cena for a while.

Thing that annoys me about WWE, if they actually bother to put effort into someone, they work. Look at A-Ri, one attack on the Miz and he goes from jobber sidekick no one cared about, to main eventing as a face alongside Cena and US title match.

Rated X Aussie wrote:

Thing that annoys me about WWE, if they actually bother to put effort into someone, they work. Look at A-Ri, one attack on the Miz and he goes from jobber sidekick no one cared about, to main eventing as a face alongside Cena and US title match.

But now, how to go about building on what we've seen with virtually no one in the min-card on Raw. Sure, he could work with Swager or Ziggler, but then what? Miz again?

Wrestling was way better before SmackDown! even started. 100% unification of the roster is the only way to go.

No it wasnt...lol

i am one of those that prefered it before the brand extention...not because of ppl not getting pushed but i geuss for me i didnt like SD when it was seperated because no matter when i watched everytime there was a crusiweight match Taz would always say " the crusiweights are exclusive to Steph McMahons/Paul Heymans Smackdown" and as a person who really couldnt give a small enough shit about the CW devision it bugged me hearing about it........but saying that i dont want the extenstion to end.........but i wouldnt want sole branded ppvs either...maybe have 4 as the main 4, 4 joint brand lesser main and 2 ppvs each branded........if that dont make sense what i mean is
RR, WM, SS and SS as major joint...then have 4 ppvs as joint but not major and have 4 ppvs where 2 are raw and 2 are SD

I see what you mean. If they were to do that, the so-called end to the brand extension would be rendered pointless. Why recreate a solo roster only to have the Raw/SD superstars one separate ppvs.