Welcome back to Brand Warfare, SLTD Wrestling’s one stop shop for everything SmackDown vs. Raw. Before we tuck into this week’s action, we can officially say that with three straight votes from Team SLTD, and a whopping 100% of the fan vote, Monday Night Raw is back in the game this week as we take things 4-2 to SmackDown Live.
Naturally, the red team still has a long way to go before they can tie, and eventually exceed the blue brand in the results, but this victory will be a good starting point. Will they be able to take it to a two-week victory, however?
Let’s check in with our panel of SLTD regulars to see who they think won the proceedings in Week Seven.
Colin Hebert – @ColinHebert614 – The Curtain Jerker
“This is the first week since the Brand Extension that I felt both shows just kind of dragged along. So my vote this week was extremely close and I went back and forth on it a few times.
Over on RAW, we had the celebration for new WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens that was cut short by Seth Rollins. Rollins attack of Owens led to Mick Foley making a Owens-Rollins title match at Clash of the Champions, which I think could be great. I also loved Rollins’ match with Chris Jericho. It is definitely a match of the year candidate. Other than this and Owens’ main event match with Sami Zayn, I can’t think of much I liked about it.
The negatives on RAW were way too many. From Gallows and Anderson-The New Day promo and Sasha Banks’ promo, a new storyline for Bo Dallas, etc., everything else seemed out of place.
On SmackDown Live, it was their go-home show for Backlash. It basically set up what we already know. They gave us a decent and for some reason comical promo between WWE World Champion Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles, a 6-woman tag match to set up the first SmackDown Woman’s Championship match on Sunday and the semifinals of the SmackDown Live Tag Team Title Tournament.
I loved seeing the Usos attack American Alpha after their match and cement a heel turn that has been in the works since they aligned themselves with Roman Reigns a while back. The Miz put on another great promo and his match with Apollo Crews was above average.
Even though SmackDown Live did not put on a solid show, it was still better than RAW’s.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Tybo Ledson – @Tybo_SLTD – Tybo Talks
“The Kevin Owens Show vs. The Road the Backlash, who put on a better show? Realistically you would think that because SmackDown is going into their first exclusive PPV that they would pull it all out of the bag. By the same token, Raw needed to have a solid outing from Kevin Owens as the new Universal Champion.
Honestly, I’m struggling to decide which show was better this week as neither red or blue really wowed me. Don’t get me wrong, both shows had their strong moments, but both shows also seemed to have even more very poor moments. I think the biggest downfall of Raw this week was the zero mention of why Triple H did what he did the week before, I understand the idea of a slow burn but to me Raw really fell down here.
They had an amazing finish to last week’s show and lost all momentum with keeping Triple H off TV. Raw wasn’t all bad; Owens vs. Zayn was awesome as usual, and Jericho vs. Rollins had some great moments too, but then you have segments like the New Day and The Club. This segment started okay but went on far (far) too long.
Unfortunately, it felt like SmackDown was in the same boat. There were some solid parts of the show, but then there were parts that felt like complete filler, and not good filler. The Talking Smack segment with AJ Styles was just odd, the burial of Fandango by Kane was not the best. Fandango deserves better, in fact SmackDown needs Johnny Curtis. That being said, SmackDown had some great moments. Great heel work from Carmella and a great turn from The Usos, I have been waiting for that one for a while.
After watching SmackDown I’m not sure what they were planning for American Alpha, but it looked to me like “these are clearly too good to be in the Tag Tournament and not win, so we are taking them out”. This felt really lazy and shows little faith in the rest of the division.
After tossing this back and forward, I think SmackDown had just piped Raw this week, but as I have said neither show was really great. I’m hoping for great things coming out of Backlash and going into Clash of Champions.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Tom Robinson – @TomRobinson5199 – Armbar Analysis
“RAW finally gained a victory last week in Brand Warfare, with Kevin Owens’ Universal Championship win being the key in the red brand’s success. Could RAW get the road to Clash of Champions on track or did SmackDown deliver with the Backlash go-home show?
RAW was a frustrating show to sit through as a whole, with the dreaded third hour providing a number of horrendous segments back-to-back and killing their viewership numbers in the process. Despite this, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn’s never-ending rivalry gave us a good main-event, while Rollins worked well as a new babyface when facing Chris Jericho. Despite the many faults, there were a number of bright moments too.
SmackDown, on the other hand, felt like a very weak attempt as a “go-home show” for their big first brand-exclusive pay-per-view. The Usos turning heel was one of the rare highlights while a lot of the build to Backlash just never seemed to hit the right notes.
Having had a few days to contemplate each show, I actually believe that RAW was the more effective show in terms of the development of storylines. While the “Old Day” segment will be an all-time low for the history of RAW, there was nothing about SmackDown that seemed to excite me and fill me with anticipation for Backlash. RAW wins this week’s Brand Warfare for me.”
Winner: Raw
Wow! After six weeks of unanimous voting, Team SLTD have finally been split with regards to who should win this week’s Brand Warfare. Unfortuantely, it had to come as a result of two fairly disappointing shows, especially when one of them was the go-home for Backlash, but it happened nonetheless.
It looks like SmackDown Live is just edging it with two-out-of-three votes, but will they be able to secure the fan vote as well and be able to get back into their winning streak? Or will Monday Night Raw be able to take things 4-3 next week and get one step closer to redemption ahead of Clash of Champions? You decide!
Be sure to vote in @SLTDWrestling’s twitter poll now to be a part of Brand Warfare and make a difference!
Which brand put on the better show this week? #BrandWarfare
— SLTD Wrestling (@SLTDWrestling) September 10, 2016
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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