You have likely heard by now that Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff will be taking over the creative for Monday Night RAW and Smackdown Live. Inside The Ropes has released a video from one of their live shows a few years ago with Eric Bischoff. During the show, Bischoff explained how he would make the WWE brand extension work.
His comments are from a few years ago but they are worth noting now that Bischoff will be in charge of Smackdown.
Here is what Bischoff said about the 2016 brand split (h/t to Wrestling INC for the quotes below):
“First off all, this is the third attempt at a major promotion brand extension. The first one was mine [in WCW], it was kind of short lived and it really wasn’t a pretty sight. Thunder… the whole idea was to create a show for the nWo, which is why we grew nWo as much as we did, and as quickly as we did because we knew we couldn’t keep all of the talent on one show without diluting the product itself. So, the idea was to build up the nWo, so that nWo or WCW would have Nitro, then [the other] would be on Thursday. That was the whole reason, which is why we did the nWo pay-per-view, which was called Souled Out.
“And that was my attempt. The second attempt was WWE’s attempt, which I was a part of. My attempt failed for a number of reasons, I think WWE’s attempt… while it’s hard to classify it as a failure, it certainly didn’t reach their expectations or anybody else’s, and I was a part of that but I was kind of a bystander, I was a talent, I didn’t have anything to do with it internally. But I think after going through my own experience and having been a part of WWE’s experience, the advice that I have would be to be as disciplined as you can possibly be at keeping the brands distinct. If you don’t make them feel completely different, it won’t work. And part of that is creating stakes, part of that is, it’s got to feel real, it’s got to be believable or nobody’s going to buy into it. But don’t let the talent start transitioning back and forth because you dilute the concept. They won’t feel like two brands, they’ll just feel like two different shows, which is what they already feel like.”
Bischoff also predicted that the 2016 brand extension would ultimately fail:
“Because the WWE does such a great job producing a phenomenal show, it doesn’t feel… it’s almost too perfect, there’s no grit. It needs to feel a little gritty, at least one of them. They both don’t have to feel gritty but one of them has to feel a little edgy, a little dangerous, like something’s going to happen that you wouldn’t expect on one show, because it’s a little less sophisticated. That’s the magic and if they both start feeling very well produced, almost glossy in their presentation, and the talent is jumping back and forth, I won’t give it six months. You won’t hear the term brand extension six months from now. It’ll suffer the same fate that it suffered the last time they tried it because that’s what happened the last time they tried it.”
Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
On a related note, check out the 5 things that WWE needs to do with Eric and Paul Heyman now in charge.