Revitalized Brand Split

Hey Scott,


Long-time reader here. I wanted to know your opinion on this idea I’ve had going way back to the original brand split in 2002.

I believe the brand split is something that’s definitely needed and is beneficial, however, I’ve always wondered why they couldn’t do something that would achieve the same benefits but from a different approach.

Instead of superstars being exclusive to a show, why couldn’t they go about it so the championships and the top contenders be exclusive to that show?

For instance, take the WWE World Championship that’s exclusive to Smackdown. The champion, Bray Wyatt, would be on Smackdown as well as the top 3 contenders for the title. You would know exactly where everyone stands in the title picture with a simple rankings system.

Bray(C)

1. Orton
2. AJ
3. Cena

So let’s say Cena has a match with Corbin and loses, Corbin is now #3 and exclusive to Smackdown while Cena can then appear on either show and work his way up to the top 3 again. They could not only do this for the main event championships (World and Universal) but also for each brand’s midcard, tag, and women’s.

Then basically at any given time you would the foundation of a brand split with 8 men, 4 women, and 4 tag teams being exclusive to a show but the huge benefit of being able to reshuffle guys around frequently to freshen things up as opposed to only the once a year draft.

​I gotta say, that sounds a bit too complicated and requires more thinking and paying attention than either WWE fans or creative can usually handle.

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