Now that we are a week removed from the WWE Draft, curious to get everyone's feedback on the roster split up between Raw and Smackdown.
Looking at RAW, looks like they got the majority of the lion's share of the top end talent.
Selections of Lesnar, Rollins, Reigns, Zayn and Owens are all very strong selections. Even for every crappy selection like Big Show, Mark Henry or Chris Jericho, you got a Finn Baylor, Rusev and Cesaro to off set them.
They got the two best Tag Teams with New Day, Enzo\Cass and got the top villain tag team of the Club Gallows and Anderson.
Women's division, they got the three best and most popular wrestlers in Charlotte, Sasha and Paige.
Not to mention that RAW will exclusively feature the WWE's cruiser-weight division, only adds more value.
On top of all that, they also boot off JBL from the announcers table, which is nothing but positive for the overall broadcast.
Smackdown roster looks weak to me. Initially Shane said he wanted to feature the younger and more hungrier wrestlers but they instead took the older and stale wrestlers on the WWE roster.
Guys like Jon Cena, Randy Orton, The Miz, Alberto Del Rio and Kane are extremely stale and tired of watching them.
Hopefully Shane will feature some of the newer talent like Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, Baron Corbin and give some of the guys that were in the WWE doghouse like Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder another shot.
Tag Team division looks extremely weak with the tired act of the Usos only competition being crappy heel teams like Ascension and Vaudvillains.
Women's division looks weak also. I like Becky Lynch but you really did need one of Charlotte\Sasha\Paige on this roster to even it out more. Natalya has been around forever and has become stale to watch. Naomi is ok too but not much else here besides under performing Eva Marie and Carmella.
Only one they seemed to break up is Paige and Alberto Del Rio.
Only one they seemed to break up is Paige and Alberto Del Rio.
Carmella and Big Case also got split up.
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WWE overall kept majority of the off-screen couples on the same brand, so they can travel together.
Only one they seemed to break up is Paige and Alberto Del Rio.
Carmella and Big Case also got split up.
Forgot about that, they should have swapped Summer Rae with Carmella. Surprised they didn't team up Carmella with Enzo and Cass like they did on NXT.
I prefer there be a Raw and Smackdown champion and then 1 floating overall WWE champion.
I like the idea of making things more streamlined and having better potential matches on each show with the smaller rosters. But it's like for every step forward they take, they take another step back. Because making a WWE Universal Champion is really stupid. Just have a Smackdown and Raw champion if you need to do that. Plus the WWE heavyweight champ. So much for building up the IC title like they said they wanted to do a while back. So what's the Universal champ supposed to be? Below the heavyweight champ? Equal to it? I sure hope they're not supposed to be equal. It's just silly.
But the women's division does have a lot of great talent and it doesn't hurt too much to split them up. The only problems are that they need to call up more women from NXT like Bayley. And if there's only 2 or 3 "top" women on each show, we'll probably keep getting the same terrible feuds over and over again.
I'm not sure how the tag titles will work. So if a tag team is on Smackdown, they'll never have a shot at the titles since New Day is on Raw? It's just weird.
I feel like they had a great reason to have a brand split but it's just not being executed that well. Like it wasn't thought out well enough before having the draft.
At this point, I'm going to punt Smackdown and pretty sure I won't miss it much. Outside of Dean, AJ Styles and Becky Lynch, all the wrestlers I want to watch are all on RAW.
If they didnt have a champion on Raw people would complain there is only a champion on smackdown. Now people complain there are champions on both shows.
At the end of the day you have to just take it in stride. I enjoy the athleticism in the show and recognize the story lines are geared towards kids and not me.
I think the in ring performances are at an all time high. The network at 9.99 is worth the three hours a month i get together with friends and watch the PPV over some beers.
Take Bayley. Fantastic wrestler; horrible gimmick. She needs to turn heel, strip off her clothes ala Sable and Debra and break little Izzy's heart.
Turn the kids off.
And just how much better would Enzo Amore be without constraints?
I wonder if the WWE would ever create a NC-17 brand (similar to old ECW) for the WWE Network since it'd be hard to promote and sell ad time for a program like that on regular networks.
If they keep it only on their own WWE Network, then I can see something like that working.
Take Bayley. Fantastic wrestler; horrible gimmick. She needs to turn heel, strip off her clothes ala Sable and Debra and break little Izzy's heart.
Turn the kids off.
I think WWE loves her for exactly what she is and she's going to Milk the fuck out of that gimmick. They needed someone to inspire little girls and grow that side of the market and she'll do exactly that.
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I know, I know, I sound like a shill, but it's true. PG is simply dampening the product (I understand it's a money-maker, but the quality of the product suffers).
Take Bayley. Fantastic wrestler; horrible gimmick. She needs to turn heel, strip off her clothes ala Sable and Debra and break little Izzy's heart.
Turn the kids off.
I think WWE loves her for exactly what she is and she's going to Milk the fuck out of that gimmick. They needed someone to inspire little girls and grow that side of the market and she'll do exactly that.
It sucks though. Fuck that gimmick and fuck the little kids watching what should be a profane show.
Love LU, but I thought the first season was better than the second.
Taya looks like a hotter Anna Paquin and Catrina/Maxine is a flat-out smokeshow.
2) NXT, instead of Smackdown.
Pit RAW vs NXT. That might get some real heat, instead of what they have now.