badnewzxl wrote:anyone who watch wrestling before WWE's brand split will tell you that this is a good thing; this is how wrestling is supposed to be. WWE simply does not have enough ACTUAL TALENT to have two shows with two separate rosters. Who on the lowercard even gets time on either show? Nobody. All the lowercard guys are on Superstars and NXT. Your midcard is Rhodes, Ziggler, Swagger, Riley, etc; not Kidd, Reks, Hawkins, etc.
plus, you give fans added incentive to watch both shows when you PUT THE PPL FANS WANNA SEE ON BOTH SHOWS! Nobody's gonna NOT watch Raw just bc they can watch SD! and see the same ppl; they're gonna NOT wanna miss either show bc they'll miss something important (you know, like during the MNW; the PEAK of wrestling's popularity). And if that's anyone's reasoning behind how this is a bad idea, then what is your excuse for the SD! Rebound and the RAW Rebound? They already recap what happened on the Raw on SD! and vice versa; how does having one roster change anything?
My biggest reason for loving this end of the brand extension is the fact that having two rosters is what's limited the superstars from getting over. Who's gotten over since 06 thanks to the brand extension? Not a single wrestler. Morrison's come close, but only bc he's been traded back and forth between brands. The very same thing can be done without having separate rosters and it could be done much better if the storylines have six to ten shows to develop instead of just three to five....
I 100% disagree. The original reason for the brand extension was that WWE had too many big names (Hogan, Hall, Nash, Taker, Rock, Austin, Triple H, Jericho, Flair, Angle, Booker T, DDP, and Big Show, plus Benoit, who was due back from an injury soon, and Lesnar, who they had planned to push to the moon). For a lot of these guys, they were over enough that being on TV on both Raw and Smackdown wouldn't get them any more over than they already were. There were also a lot of midcard guys with TONS of talent but who weren't going to get the time to get over enough because of if a guy like Rock or Austin could appear on a show, fans would be disappointed if he didn't. In order to not disappoint the fans, the time that these midcarders needed to get over was being given to main eventers who weren't actually benefiting from it. The brand split created a kayfabe reason for these guys not to appear on every show. If you went to Smackdown, you knew not to expect to see Undertaker or Austin or Flair, so you wouldn't be disappointed if you didn't see them.
Not having to write all of their big names onto both shows freed up room for midcarders. It is no coincidence that immediately after the brand split, the following midcarders got a lot more TV time and a lot more PPV matches:
Lance Storm
Test
Christian
Edge
Eddie
Chavo
RVD (had been reduced to midcard status once the Invasion ended because of lack of air-time)
Booker T (same as RVD)
Kane
Rey (would have been nothing but a crusierweight without the time that he was allowed to have)
While nowadays WWE doesn't have such a clogging of names at the top (only Cena, Orton, Christian, Punk, Del Rio, Rey, Sheamus, Big Show), they have a TON of midcarders who can break out if given the airtime and good booking:
Ziggler (who already proved this last year)
Miz (same as Ziggler, but to a lesser extent)
Dragon
Kofi
JoMo
Bourne
Cody Rhodes
Barrett
And they have Tyler Black, Jon Moxley, and Husky Harris all sitting in developmental.
A brand split makes it easier for these guys to get over by giving them the needed TV time.