10 HUGE Problems With WWE's Raw Vs SmackDown Survivor Series Concept
7. Good Enemies, Better...Friends?
Amongst the gang of buffoons screaming bloody murder in the name of Shane on Monday were Dolph Ziggler and Bobby Roode, two men set to do battle in a two-out-of-three contest before the Survivor Series, having already fought twice as part of the 'Glorious' one's introduction on the main roster. But that somehow gets parked because WWE have now decided to infer that Brand Supremacy is a bigger issue than solo success?
Elsewhere, Chad Gable actively pushing his SmackDown teammates out of the way to deck Jason Jordan was the type of horrific character booking that gets completely mishandled in situations such as this. The idea that they may end up competing on either side of mythical dividing lines is not the problem, but the concept that two former friends would be ripped apart by nothing more than blind rage was infuriatingly shortsighted.
Gable and Jordan are not Hogan and Savage, or even Michaels and Jannetty. Their split was convoluted but amicable, and could have been one of the complexities explored by a more layered treatment of a Raw/SmackDown communication breakdown. Instead, the two's imagined hostilities will most likely manifest in the form of Jordan's rebuttal whenever the inevitable reversal of fortunes happens for SmackDown Live!