[socialpoll id=”2383619″]
Welcome back to Brand Warfare, where the SLTD Wrestling community have the chance to let their voices be heard and tell us who has been putting on a better show each week; Raw or SmackDown? We can officially state that after last week’s third straight whitewash victory from our panel of SLTD regulars, and with an astonishing 100% of fan vote, YOU voted that SmackDown Live would now be leading with three victories to one.
With a week removed from SummerSlam, will Team Blue be able to maintain their impressive lead, or will Raw be able to earn back a little bit of dignity this week? Let’s take a look at what Team SLTD has to say:
Colin Hebert – @ColinHebert614 – The Curtain Jerker
“This week on the RAW brand we saw Finn Bálor becoming the first ever WWE Universal Champion at SummerSlam and then having to vacate the title just 24 hours later on RAW. That set up a “qualification” tournament to get into a Fatal 4-Way next week. Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens were all givens to get in, but it looks like they might be trying to make something of Big Cass, as he won a qualification bout against Rusev to get in. I don’t think Cass will win, but it sure is interesting see him involved.
This past Monday also brought on the main roster debut of Bayley being added to the RAW brand and beating Dana Brooke in her debut match to earn a WWE Women’s Title match against Charlotte. Bayley is desperately needed on the RAW brand as the Women’s Division is a little short on quantity.
SmackDown Live’s post-SummerSlam show brought on a lot of change, except for at the top spot. Dean Ambrose retained his WWE World Heavyweight Title at SummerSlam over Dolph Ziggler. With Ziggler seemingly out of the title picture that meant AJ Styles will be the #1 contender for the title after beating John Cena clean at SummerSlam and beating Ziggler in the main event of SmackDown Live to ensure Ziggler doesn’t make the WWE World Title match at Backlash a triple-threat. This should be AJ Styles’ time to shine and lead the blue brand.
They also debuted tag team and women’s titles, which should both trump the RAW side due to the quantity and quality of talent on the roster. Also, Heath Slater is starting to become a star just by being rejected all the time.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Tybo Ledson – @Tybo_SLTD – Tybo Talks
“I always find the Raw and SmackDown after one of the big four PPVs very interesting. It’s on these shows that all new rivalries are usually set up for the coming months, and neither show disappointed on this front.
Raw had a far tougher show to book this week, and I really think they did a great job. There had to be a lot of work going on backstage as the show we saw was not planned due to Bálor’s injury. I do love a good championship tournament, but my only issue with Raw (except the obvious time issue) is that they seem to be trying to get everything to happen right now. Personally, it think they should wait to crown the new champ at Clash of Champions. That being said, there were some great matches on Raw – Reigns vs. Jericho really stood out.
SmackDown was great this week (as always, it seems). How could it not be with the debut of the new Tag Team Titles and the new Women’s Title, which I think both look pretty good even though I am not a huge fan of coloured leather. There were some great matches on SmackDown this week; anyone else think that American Alpha vs. Breezango was good enough to be a final round match for the new Tag Titles? Then there was the heel turn from Carmella that no one saw coming, and the main event was PPV worthy.
Picking a better show this week was harder than usual, but I think once again SmackDown has just piped it in my eyes. Raw is slowly getting better, so maybe in a week or so that will once again be the dominant brand.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Tom Robinson – @TomRobinson5199 – Armbar Analysis
“SmackDown won this week’s Brand Warfare by a landslide. It wasn’t even a close contest, which is quite astonishing considering all the talent RAW has in its arsenal. SmackDown basically stuck to the same recipe as they’ve done since the brand split began.
They established the four main talking points and built the show around them. Dolph Ziggler vs. AJ Styles was established in the opening segment. The tag division, women’s division and Heath Slater were all established in the segment with Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan. They even touched on Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton.
It’s simple direction, with each little story having a satisfying ending which will all lead to the SmackDown pay-per-view, Backlash. Great work as usual from SmackDown on a show that didn’t even include John Cena this time.
Meanwhile, on the B show, RAW showed no such build for their storylines. True, they did establish the Universal title storyline in the long opening segment. However, it wasn’t made clear until nearly an hour in the show just what type of match the title will be decided in next week. Mick Foley simply stated that there would be a series of matches leading to a match for the title next week.
Not to mention that in a show which is designed to entertain the viewers, there was not a lot of feel-good moments on this show. Even the Dudley Boyz “retirement” angle was cut off by The Club.
I could go on and on about all the bad things that happened on RAW. To be fair, this was a show hampered by a major blow in Finn Bálor’s injury. Having to re-book a show just hours before it takes place probably doesn’t sound fun. However, we’ve been seeing the same sort of RAW every week beaten soundly by a SmackDown that just delivers nice and simple wrestling shows. SmackDown hardly ever does anything extraordinary and it’s killing a “star-studded” RAW in terms of talent.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Once again, SmackDown Live pulls away with all three votes from Colin, Tybo and Tom, meaning that we’ve still yet to see any differences of opinion within the ranks of SLTD Wrestling. But what do YOU think?
Do Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan deserve yet another tick in the ‘W’ column, or did Mick Foley and Stephanie McMahon do a better job booking Raw on the fly after losing one of their top stars? Make sure to leave your vote up above if you haven’t already, and we’ll be back with another scintillating Brand Warfare next week.
Follow @SLTDWrestling for more!
Self-Professed Conversational Wizard.
Admin, Editor and Writer for SLTD Wrestling.
Creator of 'Under the Spotlight'.
Studying Computing in Games Development.
Recent Comments