5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE SmackDown (May 15)
2. “Brand-To-Brand Invitational”
Oh, oh no. They're doing it again.
Last year's 'Wild Card Rule' was an abomination of logical storytelling. Firstly, WWE changed the rules to suit themselves on a weekly basis. Second, nobody actually cared enough about the brand jumps to make them worthwhile. Those problems haven't been remedied with this newly-acclaimed 'Brand-To-Brand Invitational'.
Graves said that Charlotte Flair, the NXT Women's Champ, was coming to SmackDown thanks to Raw. It's messy, and it's a total rehash of something that didn't work the first time. Cole also chipped in to give WWE enough rope with which to hang themselves; he revealed that select wrestlers will be able to appear on rival shows "four times a year".
Everyone and their granny knows WWE won't stick to that. Plus, it doesn't make much sense that FOX would willingly use up one of those "four" performances by booking Charlotte to talk rather than wrestle (how could they know Bayley and Sasha Banks would interrupt?).