WWE had finally listened to the fans granting the brand split happen on last Thursday. WWE announced that starting from July 19th WWE Smackdown will start airing as a separate brand. With the release and controversial statement of the superstars like Cody Rhodes and his wife Brandi aka Eden Stiles, WWE was about to face a PR damage. But, the franchise went right back to damage control and headlined it once again with the breaking news. WWE Raw and Smackdown will both return to its original format making them two separate brands with separate roster and championships. Needless to say that the much-anticipated WWE Draft is coming back on July 11th, as reported earlier.
This is indeed a huge decision made by the WWE Creative. Under one identity there were a huge number of talents which were not getting utilized properly with the lack of proper storylines. This resulted in a number of superstars getting into the bad books of the company and thus getting released. The separation of the two shows will definitely hand them with bigger screen time and separate storylines to build their own identity properly to the fans.
Each show will have its own title like its previous days. Smackdown will have its own world championship, with the United States championship on one show and the Intercontinental championship going to the other one. Each show will have their unique storylines leading to the pay-per-views like previous days. Though the two brands will be treated in separately, WWE will use superstars from both the shows in some handful number of Raw episodes after some big pay-per-view events or on some special occasions in the year.
Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that WWE has already planned for Raw Supershow on the night after Summerslam and next year’s Wrestlemania. wrestlingINC.com also reports that Raw and Smackdown will have their unique announcer teams too, like their earlier days. Like the past pay-per-view events, Raw announce teams will call up their matches and the same will be followed by the Smackdown commentary teams. Some sort of Raw vs. Smackdown feud or PPV like Bragging Rights is also on the cards.