WWE Draft

[air_raid]

The most baffling thing is that people unexpectedly appearing on the opposite show as a rare occurrence can add to the idea that things can be unpredictable and you won’t get the same show every week, but the “wildcard” nonsense completely negates that it’s unpredictable by making the crossovers just an expected part of the show.

12 minutes ago, Loki said:

For me, the brand split has never worked but it probably works less well now than at any time in its history.  You have Smackdown Women's champion on Raw every week.  Nakamura who is a Smackdown champ (I think?) was in a match to become a contender for a different Raw title.  It's complete shit.

This is utterly inexcusable. Announced in advance too! What possible reason would SmackDown have for allowing their Intercontinental champion to show up on Raw? Why would Raw allow a guy from “the other show” to try and get into contention for their top belt? Mumble mumble, Wildcard, rhubarb rhubarb.

Remember nonsense like this when Cole tries to convince us in a months time that Survivor Series is the only time of the year Raw and SmackDown compete against each other. It won’t even be the only time in the month of November.

[DavidB6937]

I do miss the days where the Draft was actually something to be excited about. It could have been something special but it has been so diluted over the years that it means absolutely nothing now.

Same with Survivor Series as previously mentioned. I loved that shit when I was younger. Now it's just meaningless.

[King Pitcos]

1 hour ago, Loki said:

I have NEVER understood why they do the Drafts every year. 

To get a ratings boost for that episode.

Ultimately, not one of us is going to retire from moaning about wrestling every week just because WWE strictly adheres to a brand split. It would appeal to the OCD nature of some of us, but it wouldn’t make us actually enjoy the shows. WWE’s problems aren’t solved by creating or ending roster splits, because roster split inconsistencies aren’t the root cause of WWE’s problems  - they’re just another symptom of haphazard, lazy writing.

[Statto]

On 9/25/2019 at 11:15 AM, air_raid said:

Remember nonsense like this when Cole tries to convince us in a months time that Survivor Series is the only time of the year Raw and SmackDown compete against each other. It won’t even be the only time in the month of November.

In slight mitigation for them... Whilst superstars nominally assigned to Raw & Smackdown are interacting, competing against each other & even teaming up with each other all the damn time at the moment, Survivor Series is the one night of the year where they specifically pit one brand against the other, keep score and declare an overall brand winner.

Of course, that's close to meaningless when superstars interact all the time and/or have only been on the 'team' they love so dearly for about 3 weeks when the event happens, but it's not an outright lie to use phrases like "the one night of the year when Raw and Smackdown go head to head".

If they said "the only show of the year where you will see a superstar assigned to Raw be involved in a wrestling match against a superstar assigned to Smackdown in any capacity", that would be an outright lie.

Of course, they muddy the waters a bit more with things like the Rumble/MITB which whilst not overt Raw vs Smackdown competition, it's still hinted that there is honour for the brand that the winner calls home. KOTR final this year was interesting too, as you could argue that was a contest between the winner of a Raw block vs the winner of a Smackdown block, but...

[air_raid]

1 hour ago, Statto said:

In slight mitigation for them... Whilst superstars nominally assigned to Raw & Smackdown are interacting, competing against each other & even teaming up with each other all the damn time at the moment, Survivor Series is the one night of the year where they specifically pit one brand against the other, keep score and declare an overall brand winner.

If you want to argue the semantics that they don’t explicitly state that it’s the one night of the year that Raw and SmackDown wrestlers compete in ANY matches with each other, I’ll argue the semantics they don’t explicitly state what’s emboldened. Tomato, tomato. The sound bite friendly, ambiguous phrases that Cole et al spew out in the hype videos to make Survivors seem unique in this regard ring as false to me as when they market Extreme Rules as the “one night of the year” where (in effect) dangerous gimmick matches will happen, when MITB, Hell In A Cell and especially TLC will offer the same level of carnage or more. Just saying something doesn’t make it true.