10 Ways WWE Raw Has Improved Since The Brand Split
1004 times better than the first new era...
Since the dawn of the new era, wrestling fans have been shouting from the mountain tops (or YouTube comment section) that Raw is Michael Cole to SmackDown’s Heidenreich. Due to SmackDown’s extreme rise in quality, fans seem to have ignored many of Raw’s improvements since the brand split.
Though Raw has seen a drop in ratings and still has the burden of a three hour run time, it has been a vast improvement over the 'Roman Reigned' Raws from earlier this year. In fact, one could argue that though Raw is well past its heyday in terms of mainstream appeal, yet oddly, the future has never looked brighter.
Even though “team red” may not be up to pace with its younger bluer brother at the moment, it has made great leaps in focusing its product to cater for the hardcore fan base.
So, without further ado, here are 10 reasons why Raw has improved since the brand split.
10. Concise Pay-Per-Views
This is a bit of a cheap one due to the fact that we now have two PPVs most months. However, this method suits the viewer much better. WrestleMania 32 was close to seven hours long when you include the pre-show. You could watch the original Star Wars trilogy and still have 32 minutes left over in seven hours. That's long.
Hell in a Cell and Clash of Champions were seven hours combined which is far more manageable. Then there was SummerSlam which should serve as a reminder of what long runtimes can do to a crowd.
The bottom line is, nobody wants to do anything in the world for seven hours at a time except sleep. With trimmed down runtimes, every feud can matter as opposed to booking meaningless Ziggler-Corbin feuds to fill out the show.