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RSS FeedHas the WWE brand extension been a good thing or a bad thing?
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| Bad | 59% | 113 votes | Total: 190 votes | |
| Good | 41% | 77 votes |
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Add to FavoritesThe heart and soul of the WWF was always the WWF title. Whoever held it, be it Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock or heels like HHH, the title and its incumbant was the center of WWF shows. The sheer appeal and glamour of somebody being "the one" is what helped turn wrestlers into superstars, inside and out of the squared circle. Is there not an inherent contradiction in any of today's main event performers claiming to be the World Champion, when the truth is that they are not even champion of their own federation. This is the main problem that the brand extension has given the WWE, but by no means the only one. How would someone defend the brand extension, by saying the real problem is the dearth of talent around? By saying the problem is the established stars' reluctance to put over fresher faces? By asserting that three brands must be better than one based on sheer numerical superiority? None of these arguments are without there appeal, especially the first two, but they all neglect the structural problems that the WWE has because of this brand-extension.
I write here not to argue that the idea underlying the brand extension is a bad one, but that it has ultimately failed in creating a more entertaining WWE product, or in terms of making money. While the WWE is still doing huge business, compared to the attitude era, it is not. One would think that the main reason the brand extension took place was to give more performers more airtime, and thus create more stars. Yet if there has been one failing of the WWE in recent years it has been in doing just that. Yet it is not airtime that makes stars (if that were the case newsreaders would be the most recognizable celebrities in the world), it is championships and achievements. Whatever one may think of John Cena, and my opinion is that he is a relatively poor wrestler and lackluster as a personality, there is really no denying that McMahon's attempts to make him "the face" of the WWE (and this is the role that he would be best at, representing WWE to the world) would have been much more successful if he had been, unquestioningly "the man" in the WWE. Pay-per-views are now loaded at the top of the cards because time has to be spent with the "stars", while the mid-card titles, and especially the tag titles, are very rarely defended on these shows.
Eric Bischoff has said that if he were in charge of the WWE, his first priority would be to be more aggressive with the brand extension. This would bring the competition (albeit internal) and variety the WWE is so desperately lacking at the present. It is McMahon's failure to do this that makes me think the priority of making stars is really just a cover for
McMahon's real intentions: Have Smackdown and ECW there as a safety-net for when the Raw brand fails. It really shows his lack of confidence in his own ability (and Cena's) and unwillingness to gamble. It seems to me that McMahon has now genuinely lost his touch, and if reports of his worrying behind the scenes are true, he has good reason to be.
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In my opinion, the draft extension has been a VERY good thing. Pre-Draft we had the Invasion Angle which failed miserably, which int he end left the former WCW and ECW stars, among the new talent just coming up from both the WCW's and WWF Development Territories with nowhere to go on the roster, basically, things were beginning to look the way WCW was with overflowing talent, nothing to do with them, which means more jobbers. WWE then did the smart thing, bought in a brand extension and separated equally both shows with STARS and UP AND COMERS who would potentially lead the show in the future, bringing in fresh and new talent with GOOD pushes instead of jobber after jobber being decimated by the current breed of superstars both past and present.
Nowadays, you see people like Edge and John Cena who have benefited from the draft especially, as well as people in the rival company such as Christian Cage and Tomko. Without the draft extension, Edge And Christian most likely wouldn't have been pushed in a singles run, neither would Tomko, who was exclusively a Heat jobber. Cena would have been a nobody, Eddie Guerrero wouldn't have been pushed to the main event, Rey Mysterio Jr, the list goes on. Literally a never-ending list of why the extension was, and still IS proving to be a great thing.
People complain about the draft separating the roster, they want to see the main eventer's of each show collide together, they want to see and EXPECT to see up and coming talent be pushed to the top, a new generation and a new breed of Wrestlers and Superstars of the 2000's. If the draft ended, do you really expect to see this happen? Without the extension, the company itself would have over 100 wrestlers, all competing together to be on a show. Feuds would be short and pointless extending across all three shows; Raw, Smackdown and ECW, and would be hard to follow. The fans are often also exclusive to a show, they like their main eventer's on their show. The Draft introduced a new age of wrestling within a company quickly growing stale and old, it introduced a new, organized and meaningful Roster with a shuffle around every few years, this in my opinion was pure genius at it's best.
In an un-extended brand, we would still be seeing 80's and 90's based wrestlers taking up the main event spots, with minimal to NO pushes whatsoever. The likes of Edge and Christian and the Hardy's would still be in the tag-team division endlessly with no future other than to hype up the crowd with breath-taking performances ready for the main event, the likes of the new age talent such as John Cena and Brock Lesnar would not have received the pushes they have now, or in Lesnar's case, had in the past, and the new age wrestlers on the rosters such as Elijah Burke, Monty Brown, CM Punk, would still be either working in the independents or be glorified jobbers with NO microphone time and squash matches.
Does any wrestling fan want that? No, simple as that.
Any real wrestling fan wants to witness a new age and a new introduction to professional wrestling. This means new stars being born and pushed into the top slowly but surely. Any pace is better than no pace, and with the WWE still being the ELITE company in the wrestling world, they did the right thing by extending their company into two, then three brands, therefore making room for more talent. More talent means more potential stars, more potential stars means a huge gain to the wrestling world, more quality matches and in turn more money for the business itself. What more could any fan want? It adds more aura of mystery and anxiousness to see what could potentially be if the stars of each brand collided.
The brand in my opinion was the best thing to happen in wrestling in many years. I was a fan of both WCW and ECW, and i was literally lifeless when they went bankrupt. The bran extension bought new life to my wrestling senses, a fresh new approach which i was very grateful for.
I suggest you take a moment to think about what the company did, and realize that it WAS a great move, and possibly the best move thats happened in decades fr the wrestling world. New life, new talent, new fans! the possibilities are seemingly endless, and the new future of wrestling has just begun with WWE leading the track, and TNA not far behind! Is war inevitable? Time will tell.
Learn more about this author, Wayne K. Wilkins.
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