| Quick thoughts on the brand extension in the WWE
I’ve been getting comments asking my opinion whether or not having the brand split in WWE has been a good idea. In my eyes, the “split” as you may call it has failed. I know why they did it-so that there could be two different Heavyweight champions in each one along with the Intercontinental, United States, and Tag Team championships for each brand. Lets be real, they had to combine Smackdown and ECW because neither one was cutting the mustard on their own. The ratings were tanking in the ECW only because Vince decided to change the format of it into another crap show like Heat-if anyone even watches that anymore. Then he wonders why the ratings are not the greatest and so the bright idea was to combine Smackdown with ECW. Brilliant!! Not!! If he would have kept ECW how everyone remembered it, I am sure it would have surpassed Smackdown in the ratings. But with Vince being the ego-maniac he is, he had to change it. He had to show the naysayers out there that he was correct in changing the format and that Paul Heyman wasn’t the brilliant promoter everyone thought he was. I know Paul bankrupted ECW, but I have to believe that was because while he may have been a brilliant promoter, his business sense with numbers sucked so the old ECW crashed and burned. Vince didn’t want the same format everyone remembered from the 90’s-being that was Paul’s idea so he had to change it. It has been that type of thinking for the ECW we see today that helped it to tank right down the crapper. Imagine that, you may remember this is the same man that brought us the Gobbledy Gooker, Bastian Booger, the Red Rooster, Zeus, fake Diesel, fake Razor Ramon, Skinner, and the Berzerker. Hence the reason no one really cares a lick about the ECW championship. Why dump an idea just because someone else came up with it? Vince’s ego couldn’t take it if the old style succeeded again cause he didn’t think of it. So there ya go, the whole reason why ECW isn’t getting the high ratings they were hoping for. As I understand it, TNA is almost beating them in the ratings, I bet Vince is just going crazy over that aspect.
I think it is quite apparent that Raw is the a-list brand, then Smackdown is the b-list, and then ECW is the c-list. To make things interesting they should do as they did on Raw, bring in the guys from each brand and have them interact with one another and have matches that we could look forward to. If HHH shows up on Smackdown a few times I would think the ratings might just inch up a bit higher. But it seems as if he is relegated to only Raw and will only be on Raw. If WWE wants success in all areas of their brands, they need to bring the main eventers to each brand. They do have the draft once a year and that does change it up for a little while, but it isn’t enough. If anything, have a draft every 4-6 months instead of once a year. Have the Smackdown Champ come to Raw and wrestle against a deserved wrester to get him over a little bit more then he is. Have the Raw champion go to ECW and do the same thing. Why not change things such as that?
Where are the tag team champs in any of these brands? Are they even wrestling anymore? Why not have a tournament between these guys with every single tag team going against one another from each brand. I suppose the problem could be that there aren’t many tag teams going anymore, but put some guys together at least and make it happen. There are many wrestlers that aren’t really being used for any reason except to job to HHH, Cena, and the main eventers. This type of tournament could take up to 2-3 months to pan out.
Whatever happened to the Light heavyweight championship and the Cruiserweight belts? Why not bring them back? There are a lot of “little” guys that will never see the Heavyweight belt around their waist, these could be that very reason to put some fire in their bellies and want to wrestle a good match. What about the Hardcore championship? I don’t mean bringing in the old dilapidated belt. Have a new one that looks worthy to have and to hold. Place it in the ECW brand where they were once personified as Hardcore, hence the Extreme Championship Wrestling name, why not make it Extreme again with the Hardcore championship belt?
These are but a few ideas that WWE should implement, it couldn’t hurt, that much is certain. Or do you want to see Giant Gonzalez return to the ring again? I hardly think anyone would want to see that again. At least they will do the right thing to have Undertaker win at WM24 to keep his undefeated record intact. If he loses to Edge, you know they could careless about the fans.
That’s my 3 cents worth, til next time....
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