Welcome back to Brand Warfare, SLTD Wrestling’s one stop shop for all things red vs. blue.
After fifteen weeks of action under the brand extension, Raw and SmackDown Live have officially come into their own as independent shows with separate rosters, championships, pay-per-views and management.
Though both have proven that they can stand alone, only one has stepped forward as the sole, undisputed dominating brand under the new regime, and with an astounding 13-2 victory, that brand is SmackDown Live.
Looking back now, the deck was never stacked against Monday Night Raw. They were given what appeared to be the superior roster heading forward from the draft, and with an extra hour to work with – not to mention the oncoming cruiserweight division – it seemed inevitable that the flagship show would maintain its spot on top of the WWE mountain. So what happened to make the red team pale in comparison to its blue counterpart?
Let’s check in with Team SLTD, so we can try to put SmackDown’s near-whitewash victory into perspective.
Matt Rutherford West – @maruwe22 – What Would Matt Do?
“SmackDown ruled the roost, totally and utterly over the past 15 weeks.
SmackDown has been, consistently, in a strong position in terms of making talent, making story lines and making people interested in the product. Look at what they’ve done – made James Ellsworth into a commodity, put some value in the IC Title and made a super heel out of The Miz.
SmackDown has made characters interesting, has made story lines compelling and pushed the envelope in terms of the development of wrestlers. What has Raw done? Nothing.
Think back to the competition between WWF and WCW – WWF had to fight to compete, they made stars; this is what SmackDown has done over the past 15 weeks.
Raw needs to regenerate and improve in order to stand any chance of being a serious competitor against SmackDown and to be honest, even against Ring of Honor or TNA. Yes, that might be harsh, but it’s true. Raw has focused on the main event scene far too much and haven’t developed anywhere near as much in terms of storylines or must watch TV. Think about Raw at the moment and who do you think of – Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. No-one else even comes close.
The shining light for me personally has been the female wrestlers doing their work, week in and week out and even then it doesn’t get as much exposure as it should. Look at the cruiserweights – they could have helped reinvent Raw but they’ve been pushed to the side.
The only way Raw can reign supreme on Sunday is if something gigantic happens, and I mean gigantic. I’m talking about Brock Lesnar and Goldberg interfering in the Raw vs. SmackDown match and destroying the SmackDown team. That is the only way I can see Raw coming off strong.”
Rachel Brimble – @Chica_SLTD – Wrestle Chica
“Heading into Survivor Series, each brand had to pull out all the stops to show they were the most powerful brand going in, but Raw for me was again lacking something. I always feel like you’re waiting for something big to happen but it never does, and the whole three hours leaves me feeling slightly bored and a lot of the time it’s hard for me to stay awake for the whole thing. The build-up was good for this Sunday with everyone going into the PPV looking strong, however even that didn’t grip my attention.
SmackDown was for me again the clear winner this week and it kept me gripped for the entire show as personally I just think that they have a better direction that they want to go in and they are investing more in the rivalries which is refreshing to see. I think that with SmackDown each week it feels must-see and that is exactly what you want from a show like this, whereas Raw doesn’t have that.
This brand warfare was only going to go one way and it was always going to be SmackDown as they have completely rebranded everything, which I personally think Raw needs to do. This brand split has finally brought something to WWE that we have needed for a while and this is why SmackDown is the clear winner.
Raw needs to rethink everything that they are doing and instead of only investing in one thing at a time, put some work into each title and get people interested in them. SmackDown have done this in about sixteen weeks which shows it’s not hard to do but it needs to be stuck with, and it always seems that RAW are too interested in shocking people, as they think this will grip people, but they are pushing more people away and getting them turning off.
This Sunday I do think RAW is going to be made to look like the superior brand and it’s slightly laughable, as that just isn’t the case. Hopefully it won’t be a clear landslide and SmackDown will win at least one of the matches however this would be the perfect time for Raw to completely rebrand themselves as losing completely to SmackDown would definitely make Stephanie and Mick make a lot of changes!”
Tybo Ledson – @Tybo_SLTD – Tybo Talks
“So as we come to the end of Brand Warfare and I look back on both shows, I can honestly say that if someone had told me that Team Blue would totally annihilate Team Raw in terms of storylines, matches and general entertainment, I wouldn’t have believed them.
Breaking SLTD kayfabe just slightly, when this idea was put forward to be a weekly post for a set group of our writers, I thought it was not only genius but that it could potentially go on as long as the brand split happened.
It quickly became apparent that SmackDown Live was dominating Raw week-on-week, and that this was less ‘brand warfare’ and more of a public beating of Raw by everyone involved. Don’t get me wrong, I was hoping and willing for Raw to do something that could pull them back, but the only time they seem to come close is when they have a one-off appearance by Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Goldberg etc.
I really hope that Raw does something much-needed to sort out the show they are putting out on the weekly and so that our Brand Warfare can return, but right now I really can’t see it. With the possibility of the whole cruiserweight division moving to Tuesday nights, I think it’s less and less likely that Raw is going to ‘pull it out the bag’ and return to making a must-see show… but here’s hoping.”
Tom Robinson – @TomRobinson5199 – Armbar Analysis
“I could list a thousand reasons for SmackDown’s dominance over Raw during Brand Warfare, but what’s astonishing about this is that it’s not like SmackDown were given the better roster.
Raw had so much talent at their disposal. Kevin Owens, Cesaro, Chris Jericho, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, The New Day, Sami Zayn, the cruiserweights, Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Bayley. How is it possible that all of this talent is losing to SmackDown? It’s actually pretty simple and Raw should be ashamed because the main reason that SmackDown is better than Raw is the characters used on both shows.
Raw rarely gives me a reason to care about main-event talent like Owens, Reigns and Rollins when they are among the best wrestlers in the world. On SmackDown, they found a way to make me care more about Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz then I did about anything on the Raw brand.
SmackDown gives everyone on the show a reason to be there. On Raw, Sami Zayn and Neville are just some of the people that are on that show just to be there. There’s no direction for nearly half of their roster which is insane considering you have a whole hour more than SmackDown!
Even though SmackDown should win the majority of the Survivor Series matches on Sunday, I’m getting more and more convinced that the Raw guys are going to go over. If Raw wants to put on better programming than SmackDown, they better give me a reason to care about the talent.
Why should I, as a viewer, care about Roman Reigns? Why should I care about Seth Rollins? You’ve got to give me a reason and not the reason of “well, the authority figures involved”. I don’t want to see a wrestling show built around the authority figures. I want to care about the talent and the storylines on that show. Do something creatively that could make me pay attention to these guys.”
So there you have it. It seems as though the general consensus is that while Monday Night Raw has just assumed itself as a must-see show every week, SmackDown Live actually worked to get there instead.
As a result, we’ve got one brand who always seems to be working towards an end goal (e.g. first ever women’s Hell in a Cell match, big draws like Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar) and letting the week-to-week booking and majority of its roster fly under the roster because of it, while the other focuses the majority of its time on building up each division to the best of its ability with regular championship matches, hard-hitting promos and a weekly recap in the form of Talking Smack to put everything into perspective. It’s no surprise that SmackDown has emerged victorious.
That’ll put an end to Brand Warfare for now, folks.
Thanks to everyone who’s taken part in the weekly polls to make this series a success, and should Monday Night Raw ever pick up its product to such an extent that it could likely stand toe-to-toe with SmackDown Live, there’s a chance we’ll be kick-starting things once again in the future, maybe in 2017.
Like Tybo said, however, with the way things are right now, that day might be quite far off.
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.
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