Isaac’s Fantasy Booking of the Brand Extension:
The first thing is that the differing tone of the two shows would have to be established right from the start. Raw would remain the Status Quo show, the one dictated by Vince’s firmly established habits and preconceptions. Smackdown becomes the mad-science lab, the one where new ideas are tested, where in-ring work is given a bit more emphasis than promo-heavy Raw. In a perfect world, Paul Heyman would be brought in on the Smackdown booking staff, but I suspect that’s unlikely.
A new championship belt is crafted — perhaps the World Heavyweight Championship again, pulling from the WCW legacy, which goes to Smackdown, while the WWE World belt goes to Raw. Care is taken to make sure that the Smackdown belt is given just as much importance and legitimacy as the Raw belt — so sometimes, the main event of a PPV will be for the Smackdown belt while the Raw belt is on the midcard, that sort of thing, so it’s not seen as a secondary championship.
Roman Reigns is the initial Raw champ, and gets into a feud with Bray Wyatt that re-establishes Bray as a terrifying threat, as he works to “corrupt” Roman, laying seeds for a future heel turn for RR if the boos RR gets finally become too much even for Vince to bear. AJ Styles is the Smackdown champ, and in a perfect world, Shinsuke Nakamura premieres on the first live Smackdown to demand AJ’s head on a plate, and the two go on to delivery match of the year candidates at the next two PPVs.
The US Belt goes to Raw as it’s secondary championship, and John Cena becomes its primary caretaker at first, doing open challenges and the like to build up the belt’s urgency and importance. The Intercontinental belt goes to Smackdown, and essentially becomes the cruiserweight belt, with a strong focus on more complex in-ring action. The Miz can be the initial champ there, and continues with a long reign that cements him as the second coming of the HonkyTonk Man, the proud wanna-be celebrity that the audience loves to hate, and who keeps slipping away with the belt despite the faces’ best efforts time and again, with his first major opponent being Sami Zayn, who will need a short break from his Eternal War against Kevin Owens (who will be busy in main event scene, trying to butt in between AJ and Nakamura).
The women’s title goes to Smackdown, where Bayley is finally called up and the Four Horsewomen start tearing down the house week after week, with two women’s matches per show — one for angles revolving around the belt, and one for the women’s “mid-card” if you will. Paige re-enters the women’s main event scene, and starts recapturing the momentum that she lost after AJ left. I also think that Eva Marie could make a solid secondary heel with a little work, as she is good at getting people to boo her, and she does have a decent look.
The Tag Belts go to Raw, with the New Day starting things out. Anderson and Gallows are built up as the monster heels of that division, with the Vaudevillains as solid secondary heels, and Enzo and Cass going after everyone regardless of face or heel status. The Usos and the Dudleys remain in this scene as well, and for god’s sake, let’s give the Dudley Boyz another shot. In a No-DQ match, they cut loose on The New Day, bringing in Rusev or some other monster strongman to lay waste to whomever New Day’s third man on the outside is for the match, and then the Dudleys lay waste to the remaining two after an extended brawl, culminating in a 3-D through a table. The Dudleys won’t hold the belt for more than a few months, but in that time they re-establish themselves as monsters just as deadly as Anderson and Gallows, have some solid matches to give other teams some solid heat, and will be eventually defeated by Enzo & Cass for the belts at the Survivor Series.
Corey Graves gets called up to join Mauro and Lawler at the Smackdown announce table. Samoa Joe and Asuka continue to be the main draw for NXT for the next year, but after next year’s Wrestlemania, both get called up, joining Raw and Smackdown, respectively.
Any thoughts?
I’d be nervous about putting AJ at the head of Smackdown initially. I’d be more inclined to put Owens there, having him use his amazing heel skills to dominate that belt for at least 6 mos., and have AJ and Nakamura chasing him and fighting each other, culminating in an amazing Triple Threat.
The reason I’m nervous about AJ at the top is that his mic skills are not good. Having him play off someone amazing on the mic like Owens would give him a nice buildup, especially if he gets continually interrupted by Nakamura trying to muscle his way in through sheer international star power.
Oooooh, I could see that. Have Kevin fending off AJ and Nakamura by pitting them against each other, fighting off direct threats from Cesaro, and then after Sami Zayn finishes his extended feud with the Miz, he goes after KO with blood in his eyes, maybe have that feud culminate at the next Wrestlemania.
Somewhere I saw someone fantasy booking a new Cruiserweight title for Smackdown, which I think would be amazing.
I’m actually a fan of keeping the single WWE World Heavyweight Title, but have the ability for it to transition between rosters via the PPVs as opposed to the champ floating between them. I don’t think this is realistic for marketing purposes (in terms of you’d generally want to keep the champ on RAW), but for longterm booking it would be great, I think. Having the occasional period (maybe in the fall, when Monday Night Football draws viewers away from RAW anyway) where the champ is on the Smackdown roster would go a long way towards giving people a reason to at least keep up on whats going on on the show generally.
I would worry about that constantly making Smackdown the B show, even for its own purposes, since the Champ would always be on the flagship show. In my mind, if you’re going to split the brands again, each brand has to be separated truly.
I was thinking about either having the belt move from show to show as a badge of honor between the two brands, or maybe have a raw belt and smackdown belt, and have those two champions occasionally fight it out for The Big Belt as a badge of honor, but I worry about the logistics of having extended cross-brand feuds.
I am curious to see if the Cruiserweight Invitational this summer translates into greater CW exposure in general in WWE.
I would use something like the King of the Ring PPV to crown the Ultimate Champion in the case.
Ahhh, actually make KotR mean something, rather than saddle some poor sod with the “King __” gimmick for a couple of years?
God, yes. The King gimmick was crap for almost everyone.
Booker T especially.
Chris Newton I’m trying to think of guys whose careers benefited from their KotR run, and those who didn’t. SCSA benefitted, obviously, though his status as the King of the Ring was greatly overshadowed and only referenced when needing to polish his credentials against multi-reign champions like Bret Hart. Speaking of, Bret winning the first “modern” KotR probably helped position him as a credible champion when the steroid trials made Vince emphasize smaller talent. Owen Hart benefited as well, since it furthered his “I’m just as good/better than Bret” angle. Booker T probably got the most mileage out of the crappy “king” gimmick, since he won the WHC while “King Booker”. It might have been a goofy gimmick, but that’s his one world title for WWE, so suppose that’s more plus than minus.
Angle was on the verge of the main event when he won it, so it was more an acknowledgement of that status than a boost. Lesnar is arguable, since he was obviously going to be strapped to a rocket and pushed to the top with or without the title. Mabel got into the title picture with his win, but that was at what has to be considered the lowest ebb for the WWF and that run was cut real short. Edge got into the IC title picture with his win but it’d be years before he got into the main event, and when he did, his KotR winner status didn’t matter one bit. Regal got a nice late-career accolade out of his win, but if it would have elevated him to the world championship he never held, we’ll never know since he got Wellness Policy’d and never got into the main title picture again. Sheamus had already had a world title run, so it didn’t do anything to elevate him. Shamrock stayed midcard after his win. Triple H needed a gimmick change to make any real forward progress.
And there are the people who seemed actively hurt by their reign. Billy Gunn’s was a disaster – Edge saying he wouldn’t “Billy Gunn” things if given an opportunity is still one of the sickest burns I can ever recall in WWE, and was legit burial of a talent. Barrett seemed hurt by the title, as well – nothing happened with it, and it was pretty clear all creative had for Barrett was “I dunno, put him in a cape and crown, I guess?”
As a kid, I loved the idea of the tournament, but looking back on it, KotR rarely seemed to do much for its winners, and the matches weren’t usually of the highest quality, either.
I agree. That’s why I’m leaning toward using the idea/PPV as a vehicle of crowning an Undisputed Champion and maybe setting up the next #1 contender for Summerslam (the #2 PPV).