I think they were going for how tough Samoans are to keep down. The Usos got their butts kicked in the opener, were helped out, but there they were at the end helping Reigns. But it came across as an over the top supercena-esque finish.
WWE granted the release, weirdly mentioning that she's Cody Rhodes wife in their statement. It certainly seems it was a "Eden is leaving, Cody is frustrated, so now he has no point in staying" kind of deal. As opposed to a "Cody left so she quit because of him" thing. I dunno. Just seemed off.
Why? The WWE has been doing great things all year thus far and this makes a lot of sense. The roster they have is huge and look at recent departures with guys like Cody Rhodes, Wade Barrett, and Sandow all leaving the company all three of those guys would have benefited from a brand split. Smackdown hasn't been "must watch" in a very long time. I personally skim through the spoilers every week and that is usually enough Smackdown for me, but with it going live I am instantly more interested in watching and some of the greatest moments in the history of Smackdown came during the brand split era. I think the split will add more meaning to storylines and generally give talent more opportunities to shine.
I agree they have made improvements and the brand split with the talent is a good idea. Since Vince still has the control I fear they will deplete NXT of all the good and destroy what they have going down there and completely screw up their utilization on the main shows. Just following their historical patterns.
ing much. Also I hate the brand split with an undying passion, never liked it back in the day when the roster was incredible and I still hate the idea of it now. If there are two world titles again it will just dilute the entire thing.... if the Smackdown belt is the IC then it might have a chance to work, but that's a big IF. I dunno if Tuesday is any worse than Thursday. Either way there is too much wrestling on TV to watch in any given week regardless, but I'd more inclined to tune in for Smackdown with it being live.I'm glad Smackdown is going live but Tuesday's is a bad idea. On PPV weekends we are talking about TEN HOURS of wrestling in a period of about 52 hours!!! I love wrestling but that's just too
I don't know, I just see this thing going down in flames really badly. Do we really want brand exclusive PPV's again.....?
I get what you are saying, but isn't the whole purpose of NXT to get talent ready for the main roster? You can't leave these guys in NXT forever and I think by bringing in guys like Joe, Aries, Young, and Roode they are trying to fill up the NXT roster with some more name value to keep the product interesting while they continue to develop new stars.
ing Super Bowl - world champion vs world champion, IC vs US, tag champs defending against the top team from the other show, etc. Instead they just had separate Raw and SD main events that were rehashes of a match we had already seen plenty of times in the prior year. There's no point to keeping them apart if there's no buildup to having them finally compete.
ing arbitrarily. I get "suspension of disbelief." I don't get "we're going to insult your intelligence" level of writing.ing fantasy . They'll need to make the split somewhat comparable to that level of thing in order to be worthwhile.I agree that the past brand splits and drafts have left a lot to be desired, but I think now with the Network and where the company is today versus the last time they did this we will get a much better draft and the split will work out better this time around. Having both shows be live is a big step in the right direction of making Smackdown a more important show and generally more meaningful.The draft and brand swaps were handled so
We live in a world where everything is gamified and quantified, where there's like
I do not remember that time period with much fondness at all.
Maybe they've learned from their mistakes.The draft and brand swaps were handled so
We live in a world where everything is gamified and quantified, where there's like
I do not remember that time period with much fondness at all.
ing dooooope in the ring). They might not sell out 2K seat buildings without Joe/Aries/Nakamura, but it's not like the brand will suffer. People know it's not the end point (and actively HOPE it's not the end point) for wrestler's careers.
ing nervous at how some of these mainstay WWE writers are going to handle someone like Nakamura, though. They don't know what to do with American stars from outside (the "Club" guys may as well be the Basham Brothers at this point), so asking them to handle a star from outside who is also foreign may as well be handing them a 1000 piece Rubik's Cube.They will handle him the same way they handle everyone else the internet likes. First you let the Miz beat him a bunch. After that team him up with R-Truth for a hilarious odd-couple tag team. After that just randomly use him until people forget about him and then release him.I could see them basically turning SD into "Super NXT" in an effort to bring the show back to life, bringing up all the darlings they've hired in the last year. Raw is going to be fine as is (not in terms of quality, just as far as people will always view it as the #1 show). Real
Yeah, I've kind of been on that boat since around WrestleMania time. I don't want them to go away or anything, but they really need to do something to freshen it up a little.
