I have been a wrestling fan since as far back as I can remember. I watched when Hogan battled The Undertaker. I saw the Mega Powers implode. I remember when Shawn betrayed Marty. I watched the Montreal Screwjob and I watched through the Monday Night Wars. I remember the first brand split and I am still watching as we the fans endure a another one.
This brand split has become very personal for fans as the characters that we see on TV have asked us now more than ever to pick a side. Social media is full of team blue and team red comments from wrestling fans everywhere. We compare storylines and bookings and we criticize the other brand because they don’t do things nearly as well as “our” brand.
I am one of those who loves to comment and debate wrestling with fans and I have witnessed a trend developing that I don’t understand. More and more, I am seeing comments that Smackdown Live is better than Raw, not because people prefer the superstars on the blue brand, but because there’s a growing idea that Smackdown Live books its superstars better than Raw. The reason I find this baffling is because I have consistently watched both shows since the split, and for the most part, they are following very similar formats. I’ve also seen cases where Smackdown Live does something that I absolutely know would be criticized if it happened on Raw, but it is either ignored or given a pass simply because it happened on Smackdown.
I will start with the women’s divisions for both shows. Raw opened the brand split with Sasha Banks and Charlotte feuding over the Raw Women’s Title. While most people acknowledged that the matches were often fantastic, people criticized the angle because of its length. “You two fight forever” became a rallying cry for those upset about the fact that it seemed no other women on Raw were being utilized. I can’t tell you how many times I saw people say “At least Smackdown Live uses all of their women, not just two of them.”
However if you actually watched the shows, you would have seen that while Raw used Sasha and Charlotte for the title feud for six months, they also had Nia Jax and Alicia Fox involved in a feud that culminated with a match on the Clash of Champions pre show. In addition to those two feuds, Dana Brooke and Bayley engaged in a feud that included some questionable segments, but also included escalating matches every week.
Meanwhile on Smackdown Live, Becky Lynch became the inaugural champion and she went on to feud with Alexa Bliss for seven months. During that time, Nikki Bella feuded with Carmella for a few months before she moved on to an intense feud with Natalya. Naomi was M.I.A. for many months either with injury or simply without any storyline. She even expressed her frustration via social media with a controversial tweet. Naomi finally entered the title picture as Becky went on to feud with the returning Mickey James, but she was promptly injured and is currently off TV.
Both shows had 6 women, but only Raw used all of them from the beginning of the brand split. Yet Smackdown Live is the show that was praised for utilizing all their women. Naomi and Natalya both went 2-3 consecutive months without even appearing on TV. The first example of Smackdown Live getting a pass.
Another criticism levied at Monday Night Raw was the idea that the New Day was burying the entire tag team division just to erase Demolition from the record books. After the split, New Day feuded with The Club over the summer. At the conclusion of that feud, they entered a program with Sheamus and Cesaro to whom they eventually lost the Raw Tag Team Championships to at the end of 2016. During that time, The Golden Truth and The Shining Stars really didn’t do much, Enzo and Cass spent the majority of their time squabbling with Rusev instead of other tag teams on the roster, and The Dudley Boyz retired after being decimated by Gallows and Anderson.
Over on Smackdown, Slater and Rhyno won a tournament to become the inaugural Smackdown Live Tag Team Champions and The Usos turned out to be their first rivalry before they moved on to The Wyatt Family. The Wyatt’s became the second Smackdown Tag Team Champions and a battle royal was held to determine the new number one contenders. The Hype Bros won, but Zack Ryder was injured. So a triple threat match was booked with one member of each of the last teams to be eliminated in the battle royal and whoever won that match would earn the right for his team to face the Wyatts.
Unfortunately, that match never happened, and no explanation was given as to why. Instead, a fatal four-way championship match was booked with The Usos, American Alpha, Slater and Rhyno and The Wyatt’s which American Alpha won. This booking decision made no sense because American Alpha was eliminated by The Ascension in the battle royal, and The Usos weren’t even in the battle royal because one of them was injured at the time. The last teams eliminated in the battle royal were The Ascension, Breezango and Slater/Rhyno. Why were American Alpha and The Usos even in the match? Why wasn’t it Breezango and The Ascension? If this had happened on Raw, the criticism would have been scalding but on SDLive, it was completely ignored by most fans. The second example of SDLive getting a pass.
The final criticism of Monday Night Raw that I want to discuss is the complaint that the top of Raw’s card was very stale while Smackdown Live’s card was supposedly fresh and varied. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, Raw used different combinations of Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns between the Universal Championship and the United States Title pictures.
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However, Smackdown Live did the same thing. Since the split, the Intercontinental and WWE Title pictures have been different combinations of The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, AJ Styles, John Cena and Dean Ambrose. And remember, Cena was absent for much of the year so it was truly only four guys; just like Raw. Towards the end of 2016, Smackdown Live inserted Baron Corbin into the top of the card while Raw inserted Braun Strowman.
The point here is, both shows are doing things very similarly. Superstar usage is nearly identical and feud length has been very comparable. Smackdown Live has made some very questionable booking decisions yet those decisions are mostly ignored and the blue brand garners praise from fans for doing exactly what the red brand is doing. There’s an unjust bias in Smackdown’s favor amongst fans right now and it simply doesn’t make any sense.
Written by @MasterBearJedi. Make sure to let them know what you think on Twitter or in the comment section below. Get in contact with us if you want to have something featured on our site!