In recent months and years even the pretence of Raw Vs Smackdown was quietly forgotten. Wearing a blue or red t-shirt twice a year doesn’t signify solidarity and brand loyalty when people seemingly could fight on either brand whenever it suited the bookers. Admittedly you could say the same thing for The Great Khali but you can’t have everything can you…?Īs time went by though more and more wrestlers appeared on both shows every week and event like Bragging Rights failed to make any difference, despite heavily pushing the Raw Vs Smackdown angle in feature matches. It’s also difficult to imagine that someone like Eddy Guerrero would ever have been given the World Title if there was only one in the company. Apart from the terrible beginnings (HHH was simply handed the belt by Eric Bischoff) and distinct brands the “two champions” idea made sense it gave every wrestler something to aim for and meant there was a focus to each show that, theoretically, increased fan interest. In an ego boost it was visually the same the NWA/WCW World Title belt that his hero Ric Flair had once worn but despite what the WWE might claim, there was no historical lineage between the two. Brock Lesnar “signed” exclusively for Smackdown in 2002 and the Triple H World Title was created. In amongst all this, the original idea for one World Champion who would be eligible for both brands hadn’t lasted very long. Lowering buy-rates for ppv shows led to more “inter=promotional” matches on shows and within less than a year of ECW re-forming, single-brand ppv’s were consigned to history as of Backlash 2007. The WWE even introduced ECW as a third brand in 2006, but even by now the cracks were showing. It didn’t always work, naturally, but there were at least signs that the WWE were doing what was “best for business”. Distinct rosters grew into having their own pay-per-view shows from 2003 and attempts were made to use the shows to push newer and under-utilised talent. With no competition left to speak of after the purchases of WCW and ECW, the reasoning was that the WWE could be their own competition, with two distinct brands offering different wrestlers and characters and presenting shows that were different from each other in terms of feel and concept. In the early days of the brand extension, the WWE had the depth in the talent roster to make both shows a success. Given that the brand extension has officially been declared dead by Triple H, it makes sense to have one champion, or so the story goes. Although many fans seem to be sighing with boredom that Randy Orton and John Cena will meet ONCE AGAIN at the upcoming TLC pay-per-view, there does seem to be a general consensus that a Unification of the WWE’s two World Title belts would be a good thing.
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