Welcome back to Brand Warfare, SLTD Wrestling’s one stop shop for all things Red vs. Blue.
Last week took an interesting turn heading into SmackDown Live’s first brand-exclusive Pay-Per-View, as Team SLTD showed a difference of opinion for the first time with two votes for the blue team and one for the red.
Unfortunately, this came as a result of two poorly booked shows, so our panel of judges essentially had to decide on which brand disappointed them the least, but it happened nonetheless.
That line of preference was also reflected in the SLTD fan vote, as our twitter followers were 66% in favour of SmackDown Live, preventing Raw from continuing their recent successes.
The blue brand now leads 5-2, and if the Raw roster want to get back in the game they’ll need to start pulling out all the stops on a weekly basis. Were they able to do so this week? Let’s check in with Team SLTD.
Colin Hebert – @ColinHebert614 – The Curtain Jerker
“RAW started with a very good segment and ended with a really good segment. The middle parts were just okay.
The opening segment, with RAW Women’s Champion Charlotte, Dana Brooke, Sasha Banks, Bayley and General Manager Mick Foley was all about picking Charlotte’s opponent for Clash Of Champions. It turned into a triple-threat match with Dana Brooke being involved in her highest profile match in WWE yet and not looking out of place. Sasha Banks, rightfully, got the pin on Bayley and moves on to face Charlotte.
They even got the main event right in my opinion. WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens beat Roman Reigns to keep Reigns out of the WWE Universal title match at Clash Of Champions and keep his match with Seth Rollins a one-on-one match. After interference from Seth Rollins and Rusev, Owens was able to put Reigns away.
I am still not interested in the Cesaro/Sheamus Best of 7 Series or the tag team title picture. It could be that 3 hours is just too much wrestling on a Monday night or the product is just stale on the WWE’s flagship show.
SmackDown Live had their first show since Backlash. AJ Styles is the new WWE World Champion and has not only Dean Ambrose seeking his rematch, but now John Cena is in the title picture. A great promo from all 3 men opened the show with the announcement that the main event of No Mercy will be a triple-threat match for the title.
Also announced for No Mercy is that the new SmackDown Live Women’s Champion Becky Lynch will be defending against Alexa Bliss (from my hometown!), who won a fatal 5-way match on the show.
Heath Slater finally got to sign his SmackDown Live contract he won when, with Rhyno, he won the SmackDown Live tag team titles. Common sense to me would be Slater holding up the Blue brand in a contract dispute because he is now such a hot commodity for them. But enough about what I’d do. Now that he has his contract, I am not as emotionally attached to the storyline as I once was.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Tybo Ledson – @Tybo_SLTD – Tybo Talks
“With Team Red heading into a PPV, and Team Blue heading out of one, this week’s shows should have been amazing. I was expecting big things from Raw after last week’s sup-par effort, but did it deliver? Well, as always it had its moments. Raw is a tough show to watch sometimes, the sheer length of the thing is its greatest weakness and always will be… well until they either reduce the show to 2 hours or develop more of the talent and get a better depth of roster. That being said, Raw was not bad by any stretch. The Rollins/Foley interaction was great, opening the show with the Women’s division was also something you don’t see enough of, and the return of Rusev were all great. My main issue is everything in-between feels to long, and at times a really hard watch.
SmackDown on the other hand is taking over! I didn’t think I would be such a huge Team Blue fan, coming off a great first SmackDown exclusive PPV, where I was expecting a Three Star PPV and ended up watching a Five Star PPV. Everything on Tuesday nights seems to be working, World Championship picture looks great with AJ, the Women’s Championship looks great with Becky and Intercontinental Championship hasn’t looked this good in a long time with The Miz, and the Tag Team Championships are looking great with Slater, baybay!!!
Honestly, at this point I’m not sure what Raw can do to bring this back, maybe the Cruiserweight Division’s debut next week will add some much needed excitement to the red brand, but I’m not sure even that will be enough to take down the rolling blue thunder of SmackDown.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
Tom Robinson – @TomRobinson5199 – Armbar Analysis
“This week’s Brand Warfare wasn’t even close, featuring Raw and the post-Backlash edition of SmackDown. One show did a tremendous job at continuing angles or setting up new programs, with even The Miz coming off as a main-event star. SmackDown featured great work from John Cena, Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles in the main-event title program, as well as great work involving the SmackDown Women’s and Tag Team titles as well.
On Raw, things aren’t as exciting. The idea of an exciting angle involving Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins and Triple H has seen itself decline in quality, and that’s the case for one of the stronger storylines on Raw. Other angles, like the first thirty minutes of RAW involving the women, made it honestly seem like they were begging people to turn off the show. This did not make for great television.
SmackDown won this by a landslide and, to be perfectly honest, I really hate the fact that SmackDown has been so dominant in this brand warfare. The “flagship show” for WWE has seen its rating and quality of programming sink while SmackDown has been the top dog. That just doesn’t seem right to me.”
Winner: SmackDown Live
With all three members of Team SLTD on the same page once again, things aren’t looking too hot for Raw. The red team will have a big opportunity to turn things around next week, as they head into the go-home show for Clash of Champions and finally debut the highly anticipated cruiserweight division with TJ Perkins as its champion.
As for this week, however, the buzz surrounding Backlash, and the way the blue brand successfully coped with going forward from the event seems to have them firmly in the lead this week, but will they be able to maintain it?
That’s up to you! Vote in our poll at @SLTDWrestling below, to make your mark and be a part of Brand Warfare!
Which brand put on the best show this week? #BrandWarfare
— SLTD Wrestling (@SLTDWrestling) September 15, 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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