The Goodness 11.07.06: End the Split

No long intro today. I’m writing this on the eve of Election Day or, for reporters, the Worst Day of the Year. In the past week, I’ve interviewed John McCain, Ralph Nader, UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun and Ben Affleck on various races in Connecticut. Why anyone would care what Affleck has to say about politics is beyond me but those UConn college kids sure seemed impressed. Well, the ladies were. The guys were far more into Calhoun. Anyway…

At WrestleMania this year, the Big Show wrestled in the opening match – a throwaway tag team match that was only there to further the split between Carlito and Chris Masters. Booker T was in a filler match against the Boogeyman that involved lots and lots of worms and was a showcase for the Boogeyman. This Sunday, those two men were billed as world champions going into Cyber Sunday versus John Cena. Something didn’t seem right.

Imagine a “champion of champions” match when WCW, WWE and ECW were all alive and kicking. Who wouldn’t have wanted to see, say, Rocky vs. Randy Savage vs. RVD in 1999? Now that would have been a crazy, ‘can you believe this?’ match-up but the “champion of champions” match on Sunday came off as lame, tired and stale.

When the brand split was announced in early 2002, I was excited and I think many other wrestling fans were. The WWE’s roster was getting too bloated and it was a good idea to split them up. In addition, we were under the impression that this added air-time would give more young guys a chance to shine and some underappreciated stars the ability to spread their wings. For a time, the brand split was an excellent idea.

From 2002-2003, the split gave wrestling fans an opportunity to fall in love with wrestlers like Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Edge and Rey Mysterio because, with the two brands, they were given time to put on fantastic matches weekly. The split of the rosters allowed the WWF to bring up raw newcomers like Batista, Randy Orton and John Cena – all in a span of a month of so – in the summer of 2002. It was exciting to be a wrestling fan for that period. Things were happening, new faces were being introduced and given a chance to wrestle in main events they may not have before. A wrestler like Matt Hardy, with his exceedingly awesome V1 character, had the opportunity to make a splash and get over.

The most important aspect of the brand split, which the WWE played to perfection in those first two years, was the separation of the rosters. There were brief interactions on the joint pay-per-views and rare moves between the rosters that, because they were rare, felt special and important. It truly felt like there were two separate rosters and two separate WWE shows independent of each other. The shows even felt different with Raw focusing more on the sports-entertainment while SmackDown tended to put more focus on the in-ring matches. The ratings weren’t at Attitude-levels but, looking back, they exceeded where they are now.

But over time, the brand split eroded further and further to the point there really is no split. For no reason at all, well except to pimp his movie, John Cena shows up on SmackDown. Vince McMahon brings in SmackDown guys to face, and summarily get destroyed, by D-X. The addition of a third brand, ECW, only further muddled the split with ECW guys showing up everywhere with Raw and SmackDown guys always on ECW. So what’s the point?

The main goal, I thought, of the brand split was to give the WWE an opportunity to look at more talent and create more stars. If anything, they’ve regressed in that area and we’re fed the same guys in the same feuds over and over again. How can anyone on Raw have time to get over when we have 30 minutes of the same DX-McMahon feud that has been going on in some form for more than a year? Guys like Carlito, Shelton Benjamin and even the Highlanders have shown flashes of getting over but are quickly shunted out of the picture.

For whatever reason, the WWE is turning slowly into late 1990’s WCW, with the old guard remaining on top and no fresh blood being introduced. I have maintained for years that wrestling fans are marks for what’s new, what’s different. That’s why we get excited when a new wrestler debuts after weeks of vignettes, no matter how lame the vignettes are. That’s why we get behind mid-card wrestlers like Carlito, hoping to push him to the top and freshen up the main event scene. There were times – specifically leading up to WrestleMania’s 20 and 21 – that we were teased with new blood. Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Batista and John Cena were pushed to the top and the anticipation of their arrival to the main event nudged those ratings up and bumped buyrates. Each time, it felt like the WWE was on the verge of something. But, without fail, each of the four lost their momentum once reaching the top so the focus could remain on Triple H, the Undertaker and Vince McMahon.

Am I bitching right now? You’re damn right I’m bitching right now. The most frustrating aspect of the recent WWE booking has been the constant inter-brand matches, run-ins and angles. I’m tired of it. You know why? There’s no point anymore. How can you say someone’s a SmackDown guy when he’s on Raw twice a month? What’s the point of having an ECW if you need an appearance from Batista or, heck, Raw retread Big Show as the champion? Is the SmackDown roster so thin that Booker, who admittedly is a solid heel, was pushed from curtain-jerkin’ to being considered a World Champion?

And therein lies the big problem – there are three world champions under the WWE banner but fans know Cena’s the only real deal. I don’t know how Big Show can be considered a world champ when he has barely defended the title against ECW wrestlers and got beat by DX about five times. Does anyone consider Booker T the most over guy on SmackDown? I would say Kennedy, Finlay and Batista are all more over than Booker. I’m not laying blame on Booker T; I’m laying blame on the WWE.

Because they have not been able to create any new stars in the past year or so, which is way more of a problem on the Raw side of things, we’re stuck with the same matches over and over. With the blurring of the brand lines, it’s clear the WWE has seen this problem and tried to fix it by creating artificial “dream” matches that no one with a brain believes. The main event of a pay-per-view match with THREE world champions should be money in the bank. It was a forgettable night with a forgettable main event.

My solution is simple – end the brand split. If they want to keep ECW, I can agree to that as long as they get their own house shows, stay off of Raw and SmackDown, and create their own identity. As for the big two shows, they need to combine the rosters. Unless the WWE goes back to their 2002 thinking and giving young kids a chance, the split is pointless. Do you know they signed Davey Boy Smith’s son Harry, who by all accounts is a great talent, and had NOTHING to do for him. Can you imagine that? The biggest wrestling company in the world with a young talent who could be instantly over just by showing up is sitting on the sidelines while the creative team figures out another clever word for penis or asshole for DX to say next week.

By all indications – buyrates, attendance, ratings – the WWE fan is tired of it. SmackDown is pulling in numbers that would be considered an absolute disaster in 2002 but nothing seems to change. I said before wrestling fans are marks for what’s new. Well, sometimes what’s old is new again. Combining the rosters, having one WWE champion, one mid-card champion and one tag team champion would instantly bolster the WWE’s appeal to fans. Instead of SmackDown fans watching some form of Lashley/Finlay/Batista/Booker for three straight months, they might get something different.

It’s not going to happen and I know it’s not because, with about 20 pay-per-views, the WWE has found just enough suckers to buy these shows. But they’re now getting lapped by mixed-martial arts in the pay-per-view arena and, eventually, those 100,000 people who buy each and every show are going to fade away. You can’t keep feeding them shit and calling it chocolate. Cyber Sunday was the latest indication that the WWE has lost whatever it had found in 2002 with the initial split – it’s time to end it and give fans good wrestling shows. Because many wrestling fans have grown tired of the crappy ones.