10 Biggest Missed Opportunities From WWE Draft 2016
1. Failing To Create Any Brand Distinction
WWE’s most glaring missed opportunity of all, however, is their absolute failure to create any significant differentiation between the two brands.
The whole point of the Brand Split is to increase ratings by switching a number of different creative directions. Last time around, WWE did a great job of establishing SmackDown as a wrestling-centric show away from Raw’s over-the-top sports entertainment. SmackDown pushed the art of competition to the very forefront, and while still home to some of the company’s most important storylines, the brand was better known for pushing outstanding weekly matches between the likes of Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio.
While the distinction fell apart towards the end of the first Brand Split’s shelf-life, it was a big success at the beginning. SmackDown was a genuine alternative with its own identity, and that made it worth watching. It was refreshingly different to Raw’s garish soap opera, and many hoped the same would happen with the 2016 Draft.
Unfortunately, it did not. While WWE didn’t necessarily need to go down the same entertainment vs. wrestling path, they did need to separate the brands’ identities and make SmackDown important again. As it stands, they have failed.
Keeping the Women’s and Tag Team divisions together and making them brand-exclusive would’ve been a good start. Instead, we have two talent rosters that are barely distinguishable from one another, with a relatively equal proportion of male singles, tag team, and female competitors on each.
This is a huge problem, and it sets the Brand Split off to the worst possible start. It’ll now take a huge creative effort to create the brand distinction required to ensure the Split’s long-term success: here’s hoping they can make it.