10 Mistakes WWE Is Repeating With The Current Brand Split
10 years after the first try, WWE is at it again, but have they learned from their mistakes?
It's been nearly three months since WWE split their roster into the two live shows of Monday Night RAW and Tuesday night's SmackDown Live. This isn't the first time WWE has attempted a hard separation of their talent pool.
Back in 2002, not long after acquiring the assets of WCW and ECW, Vince McMahon decided he had enough talent to run two separate touring shows. While this brand extension lasted years and brought about some good things for the company, the split ultimately failed and the two rosters were once again merged in 2011.
Since then the talents have changed, the backstage producers have changed, even the company's business model has changed. With the development of the WWE Network, WWE has shifted its entire strategy away from the old pay-per-view model and into a forward-thinking strategy of garnering monthly subscriptions.
Despite all these changes, the promotion has taken the most recent brand split and made many of the same moves they did during their first attempt back in 2002.
10. A Very Loose Roster Split
Back during the Monday Night Wars and during the peak of the most recent pro-wrestling boom period, how many times would fans see contracted WWE superstars appear on WCW's Monday Nitro? What about WCW talents appearing on WWE's Monday Night RAW? Never.
That's what made Scott Hall's May 1996 Nitro appearance so special is that many fans thought he still worked for WWE. He didn't, but it was the first time either company presented a talent as belonging to a rival organisation appearing on their show.
Fans are smarter these days and with the expansion of the internet and social media, it's much more difficult to keep a secret under wraps. Still, that doesn't mean talents should be moving back and forth from RAW and SmackDown so frequently.
After a decade of WCW and WWE never exchanging contracted talent, within weeks of WWE's 2016 brand split, RAW's #5 pick, Brock Lesnar, appeared on SmackDown and Randy Orton, SmackDown's #4 pick, showed up on RAW. What?! Why?!
Whether's it's justified as a "trade", a "free agent signing", a yearly draft for no reason other than to draw ratings, fans don't buy it. They know the talents can be moved back-and-forth willy-nilly and it leaves them uninvested.
For WWE fans to take the brand split seriously, the company absolutely must adhere to a hard roster split for years before fans will care about any type of crossover from another brand. It's definitely an investment of time but, if done right, the pay-off would be well worth it.