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Welcome back to Brand Warfare, your very own platform to let us know which brand – Raw or SmackDown Live, has been pulling off the best shows from week to week. After roughly 83% of the fan vote and three votes from Team SLTD’s own representatives, SmackDown Live has taken the scoreline to 4-1 as we head into week six.
Will a history-making episode of Raw be enough to get back in the game, or was SmackDown’s consistently captivating broadcast just that much better once again? Let’s hear from our panel of SLTD regulars!
Colin Hebert – @ColinHebert614 – The Curtain Jerker
“I can honestly say that for the first time in weeks, I was thoroughly entertained for the majority of RAW. It’s three hours long so that may not mean much, but it had several high points. I loved the Universal Title match and was shocked by the HHH return, and him turning on Seth Rollins. Maybe lost in that was the fact that Kevin Owens won the Universal Title. This opens so many doors – does HHH now go after Kevin Owens since he is owed a title rematch, do Rollins and Roman Reigns go after HHH or Kevin Owens, who does Owens defend the belt against first? The top of the RAW card is looking mighty interesting.
Also, I loved the Chris Jericho stuff! He seems to be on top of his game lately!
SmackDown continued its march towards Backlash. Even though only a bit was given to promote the WWE title match between Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles, I found it interesting that they were put in matches with guys from the “new era”. Although Baron Corbin and Apollo Crews were humbled by Ambrose and Styles respectively, just seeing them in prime-time slots with that talent told me they might be setting something up for later with those two.
I was disappointed that The Miz and Daniel Bryan did not air their grievances with each other in the middle of the ring. After last week’s “Talkin’ Smack” and the reception it received I thought it would have made for great TV.
The tag team tournament continued with The Hype Bros and the team of Heath Slater and Rhyno advancing. Slater and Rhyno defeated the returning HeadBangers, which confused me on how they got in, but they got defeated so it’s all good now.”
Winner: RAW
Tybo Ledson – @Tybo_SLTD – Tybo Talks
“If anyone has been following this every week, which I hope you all are, you will know that since the second week of doing this I have basically been saying that Raw really need to pull something out of the bag to beat SmackDown’s solid show development, and I think it’s safe to say that this week… Boy, did they!
With teaming of New Day and Bayley, calling themselves New Bay of course, the amazing promo between Steph and Heyman, the crowning of an all new Universal Champion, and the return of The Game himself, Triple H, there is absolutely no doubt that Raw brought their A-game this week. It feels like Raw is beginning to get into a pretty good stride coming out of this week’s show and I really hope they capitalise on it.
The Universal Championship match was great and was given the time it deserved. The same goes for the second round in the ‘Best of Seven’ series between Cesaro and Sheamus; I really hope this elevates both men (more so Cesaro) into the main event picture.
As always, SmackDown pulled out the quality of show that we are all used to at this point, great tag-team tournament matches, amazing promo work, especially from The Miz and Dolph Ziggler. The Miz has had a major turning point in his career in my eyes, and I really think SmackDown should look at elevating him to the main event when he loses the Intercontinental Championship. I have not really had any issues with SmackDown lately, but the random ‘Milkman’ match with Kane totally killed the rolling of the show for me. I am just not a fan of squash matches at the best of times but that just made zero sense.
So who put on the best show, Team Red or Team Blue? When I started this I promised myself I wouldn’t give a show the win on the strength of one superstar, but this week the return of Triple H has pushed Raw over the top for me. That being said Raw would have been can’t-miss TV even without Triple H as they there was guaranteed to be a new Universal Champion.”
Winner: RAW
Tom Robinson – @TomRobinson5199 – Armbar Analysis
“For the last four weeks in a row, it’s been a rather one-sided affair as far as Brand Warfare is considered. SmackDown has been the king of the brand split since it began, with RAW only ever beating SmackDown once in quality. This week, things changed in an emphatic way.
This week’s RAW will go down as an historic episode, having crowned a new Universal Champion with a swerve that few people anticipated. The episode was very well-structured, considering that it was a three hour show. RAW did a good job in building up to the important fatal four-way elimination match at the end of the show and the main event lived up to the hype.
Big Cass fit into the main-event well, not looking out of place at all. Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens all worked together well leading up to the finish.
On SmackDown, things seemed a lot more flat. I was left rather underwhelmed as WWE tried to follow up on hot angles like The Miz’s worked shoot from Talking Smack and Heath Slater’s quest for a WWE contract. It’s not like they destroyed those angles or anything, however in comparison to things that RAW got right, SmackDown seemed vastly inferior.
RAW won this week’s brand warfare by a landslide, but I just hope that this can be the start of a big comeback for the red brand in this war between RAW and SmackDown”
Winner: RAW
For the first time in five weeks, Raw bounces back with three straight votes from our panel of judges here at SLTD Wrestling. A win in the polls will give the red team back some of the dignity they may have lost through four consecutive losses to take things to 4-2, but do they deserve it? You decide! Be sure to vote up above and leave your comment to let us know why your chosen brand pulled off the better show this week!
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Self-Professed Conversational Wizard.
Admin, Editor and Writer for SLTD Wrestling.
Creator of 'Under the Spotlight'.
Studying Computing in Games Development.
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