How to Avoid Having a Lame Take on the Raw/Smackdown Split
This morning, Entertainment Industry Press Release Aggregator Variety broke the news that WWE is re-doing the much-reviled Brand Extension. While the term "Brand Extension" was wisely avoided, Variety's echoing of WWE press materials report indicated that the new WWE will have all of the traits of the old Brand Extension era: separate rosters, separate writing staffs and separate angles.
WWE's press release focuses on the fact that Smackdown will now air live, but that's hardly the big news to wrestling fans. The bigger news is that Smackdown is moving to Tuesdays and that the roster is being split up.
Luckily for wrestling fans, WWE's burying of the lede will have no effect on the volume of commentary on the Raw/Smackdown split. Countless podcasts, websites and, yes, this blog, will happily provide takes for fans' perusal.
This blog is going to let the news sink in and save its take on The Split for another day. Hopefully that take will be judged to be insightful and relevant.
Sadly, many takes on The Split will be neither insightful nor relevant. Many will be lame.
Here, then, are a few things to consider for the wrestling fan who wants to avoid having a lame take on the Raw/Smackdown split:
Avoid bringing up that the Brand Extension "failed".
A favorite cliché of this blog's is, "past performance is no guarantee of future results", and that cliché applies here.
Yes, the Brand Extension was reviled by fans. Yes, the Brand Extension contributed to WWE's mid-00's decline. Yes, the only good thing to come out of it was the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view.
So, what? Ang Lee's "Hulk" failed, and now the Incredible Hulk character makes Marvel Comics a ton of money. Ken Shamrock's WWE promos failed, but his UFC promos made him and Tito Ortiz a ton of money.
There is nothing inherently flawed about splitting Raw and Smackdown. It just needs to be done right.
Avoid saying that "they're gonna mess it up".
First of all, avoid the word "they" altogether. Vince McMahon hates pronouns, and so does this blog.
As for the reasoning behind this advice, refer to the part of the previous advice labeled "past performance is no guarantee of future results".
Avoid complaining about the "thin roster".
What's 100 ÷ 2?
50.
How much does one lose when one splits 100 in two? 50.
What's 10 ÷ 2?
5.
Only 5 is lost when 10 is split in two.
The point here is that splitting a stacked roster costs a wrestling promotion a lot more than splitting a thin roster.
Imagine if WCW decided to split their roster right before Bret Hart arrived in 1997. WCW quite possibly had access to the most "dream" matches of any pro wrestling company in history. Bret vs. Sting, Bret vs. Flair, Bret vs. Hogan, Bret vs. Luger, Bret vs. Nash, Bret vs. The Giant, Bret vs. Hall and probably a few more were all potential high-drawing pay-per-view main events. It would've been promotional suicide to take half of those "dream" matches off the table by splitting the roster between Nitro and the soon-to-be-debuting Thunder.
The BEST time to split is when the roster is thin. Very few wrestlers are over, anyway. It's not like a ton of slam-dunk programs are being lost.
Avoid fantasy booking an "invasion" angle.
An invasion angle may come. WWE surely hopes it does, since the "Invasion" pay-per-view still (and likely always will) has the highest non-WrestleMania pay-per-view buyrate in pro wrestling history.
The problem with talking about it now is that A) it's a long way away, and B) nobody knows if it can be done, anyway.
Raw and Smackdown will be separate, but they will still be part of WWE. It does nobody any good to make the entire Raw or Smackdown entity a "heel".
In the 90's (and earlier), MANY wrestling fans viewed either the WWF or WCW as a "heel" entity. That, likely, was an essential element to making the "Invasion" pay-per-view so successful.
It's just too early to tell whether an "invasion" angle can happen without either Raw or Smackdown being a full-on "heel" entity.
Now, get out there and deliver those takes. This blog is looking forward to seeing what wrestling fans and commentators think about The Split, especially if the takes are not lame.
WWE's press release focuses on the fact that Smackdown will now air live, but that's hardly the big news to wrestling fans. The bigger news is that Smackdown is moving to Tuesdays and that the roster is being split up.
Luckily for wrestling fans, WWE's burying of the lede will have no effect on the volume of commentary on the Raw/Smackdown split. Countless podcasts, websites and, yes, this blog, will happily provide takes for fans' perusal.
This blog is going to let the news sink in and save its take on The Split for another day. Hopefully that take will be judged to be insightful and relevant.
Sadly, many takes on The Split will be neither insightful nor relevant. Many will be lame.
Here, then, are a few things to consider for the wrestling fan who wants to avoid having a lame take on the Raw/Smackdown split:
Avoid bringing up that the Brand Extension "failed".
A favorite cliché of this blog's is, "past performance is no guarantee of future results", and that cliché applies here.
Yes, the Brand Extension was reviled by fans. Yes, the Brand Extension contributed to WWE's mid-00's decline. Yes, the only good thing to come out of it was the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view.
So, what? Ang Lee's "Hulk" failed, and now the Incredible Hulk character makes Marvel Comics a ton of money. Ken Shamrock's WWE promos failed, but his UFC promos made him and Tito Ortiz a ton of money.
There is nothing inherently flawed about splitting Raw and Smackdown. It just needs to be done right.
Avoid saying that "they're gonna mess it up".
First of all, avoid the word "they" altogether. Vince McMahon hates pronouns, and so does this blog.
As for the reasoning behind this advice, refer to the part of the previous advice labeled "past performance is no guarantee of future results".
Avoid complaining about the "thin roster".
What's 100 ÷ 2?
50.
How much does one lose when one splits 100 in two? 50.
What's 10 ÷ 2?
5.
Only 5 is lost when 10 is split in two.
The point here is that splitting a stacked roster costs a wrestling promotion a lot more than splitting a thin roster.
Imagine if WCW decided to split their roster right before Bret Hart arrived in 1997. WCW quite possibly had access to the most "dream" matches of any pro wrestling company in history. Bret vs. Sting, Bret vs. Flair, Bret vs. Hogan, Bret vs. Luger, Bret vs. Nash, Bret vs. The Giant, Bret vs. Hall and probably a few more were all potential high-drawing pay-per-view main events. It would've been promotional suicide to take half of those "dream" matches off the table by splitting the roster between Nitro and the soon-to-be-debuting Thunder.
The BEST time to split is when the roster is thin. Very few wrestlers are over, anyway. It's not like a ton of slam-dunk programs are being lost.
Avoid fantasy booking an "invasion" angle.
An invasion angle may come. WWE surely hopes it does, since the "Invasion" pay-per-view still (and likely always will) has the highest non-WrestleMania pay-per-view buyrate in pro wrestling history.
The problem with talking about it now is that A) it's a long way away, and B) nobody knows if it can be done, anyway.
Raw and Smackdown will be separate, but they will still be part of WWE. It does nobody any good to make the entire Raw or Smackdown entity a "heel".
In the 90's (and earlier), MANY wrestling fans viewed either the WWF or WCW as a "heel" entity. That, likely, was an essential element to making the "Invasion" pay-per-view so successful.
It's just too early to tell whether an "invasion" angle can happen without either Raw or Smackdown being a full-on "heel" entity.
Now, get out there and deliver those takes. This blog is looking forward to seeing what wrestling fans and commentators think about The Split, especially if the takes are not lame.
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