Feelings about the Brand Extension?

[Angelwings]

How did you feel about it then and do you think it would have been a useful tool to showcase the now ample amount of up and coming talent?

Could it have aided the midcard titles or renewed the status of Smackdown as something more than a B show full of replays? Or are these things largely related to creative shortcomings and Smackdown being on Friday nights?

[Deleted]

Everyone used to complain about the brand extension saying SD's "lesser" roster made it unwatchable when it was so cool having everybody on every show during the attitude era. But that was because the attitude era had people you wanted to see on every single show. Today, not so much. There's also a ton of talent being wasted just to shove the same matches from SD onto the next Raw. And now great main event talent is being lost in the midcard, while the midcarders have almost disappeared completely. It sucks.

Smackdown is completely useless right now. Nothing big ever happens on it cause they want to save the good shit for Raw. Any matches that happen are pointless, because again they just happen again the next week on Raw. Buying tickets to go see smackdown anymore is a complete waste of money. Sure now you have a better chance of seeing everyone you want to see, but it's so boring. Just go to a house show. Back with the brands you'd go to SD and miss seeing HBK, or John Cena, but you still got to see good talent, with storylines, and matches that actually matter. Smackdown has lost all of its identity in ending the brand split and I wouldn't be shocked if they got rid of it at this point.

Plus the draft was fun as hell every year and really did shake things up. Imagine if Brie or Nikki got drafted to SD while the other stayed on Raw. That would really help establish them as single entities even more than Total Divas has.

I would obviously love to have the brand split back. Smackdown is dying, people aren't being showcased, everything is becoming stale and reused, storylines are scarce on any show that isn't Raw. They don't have to bring back brand specific PPV's, tho with the Network that'd probably go over a lot easier with the fans, but I miss the brand split for sure. They can keep Main Event duel branded, cause that would make even that show more special than it is right now. And I don't mean have a Raw match then a SD match, I mean have Raw vs SmackDown matches every week. But midcarders. Leave the main eventers for the PPVs.

But that's never going to happen. The brand split is done and I don't see it coming back any time this decade.

[Deleted]

I liked when Smackdown was it's own brand and had their own wrestlers exclusive to that show. Like Jayzero said the show is pretty pointless now and I don't see them bringing back the brand extension either. They treat the Main Event like a bigger deal than Smackdown these days.

[Burke]

I liked the general idea of the brand extension up until around the time when they brought back the new ECW. After that it seemed like everyone could appear on any show whenever they wanted and made the whole thing pointless.

The first few years were pretty good though (despite some of the awful single brand PPV's). I liked that both shows were pretty much equal from 2002-2005. They both had their own old veteran (HBK/RAW, Undertaker/SD), a top heel (HHH/RAW, JBL/SD), the up and coming star (Orton/RAW, Cena/SD), their own top Diva (Trish/RAW, Torrie/SD), etc. And when you got a confrontation between the likes of Goldberg and Brock Lesnar it felt like a big deal because they had been kept apart for so long, whereas nowadays you hardly ever get that feeling because almost every combination of matches has been done a bunch of times on TV already.

I don't think they could go back to the brand extension though. There's not enough top stars to pull it off. When the weaker brand (we all know it would be SD) was getting crappy ratings or struggling to sell tickets they'd just send over the people from the other show to help them out, which would end up bringing us back to where we are now.

[Astrozombie]

I haven't actually sat through Raw in awhile, but the draft was literally my favorite thing. It was always so exciting, especially when they made it so the divas were on the line regardless of what match it was (back when Maryse got traded to Raw and Melina to SD). It's something that should've never been taken away. The only thing that should've been void of the brand extension was Superstars. I always wanted to see random matches that didn't necessarily need a storyline.

[Burke]

Jan 24, 2015 3:48:24 GMT -5 Astrozombie said:

I haven't actually sat through Raw in awhile, but the draft was literally my favorite thing. It was always so exciting, especially when they made it so the divas were on the line regardless of what match it was (back when Maryse got traded to Raw and Melina to SD).

I agree. Even those last few years when the brand extension was mostly pointless I still always looked forward to the draft show.

[Brandon]

Looking back on it, it would be helpful if the brand extension were around today, given the lack of direction they seem to have with so many Divas. Barely seen women like Emma and Cameron could be top stars on SmackDown!.