10 WWE Decisions AEW SHOULD BE Scared Of
6. Saving SmackDown
SmackDown's move to Fox couldn't come at a better time for the blue brand.
The millions (and millions, and millions) of dollars the organisation will trouser from the deal put a good kind of creative pressure on the company to improve upon a show that's been somewhat lacklustre over the last few months.
Always overlooked in comparison to Monday Night Raw, SmackDown's future looked set to mirror its 2013-2016 past when the company initiated the Wild Card Rule in the first of several subtle steps to potentially terminate the existing brand split.
Thankfully, the impact of the daft regulation lessened in the run up to SummerSlam amidst rumours that each show's controlling network wanted shows with their own rosters and identities. Beholden to the huge figures being paid, WWE seem to be obliging accordingly.
The idea of an "A" and "B" show was less of a thing during the company's commercial and critical peak in 2000. Raw had tenure, but SmackDown offered just as many captivating skits and segments before settling into life as the taped and tepid secondary show at some point in the mid-2000s.
Jon Moxley called AEW's Double Or Nothing launch a "paradigm shift", and it felt palpable enough to be true. WWE could orchestrate their own here.