The Moment: The Brand Extention Went Wrong

[Macho Man]

Now this is a topic which leaves itself open to a lot of debates on all fronts, as I’m aware there are people that were against it to begin with, and a lot of those that were for it would eventually turn when they spawned a third brand; ECW on Sci-fi. But whether you were for or against it during its inception or during its growth period, I think it is safe to say that asides from keeping a lot of people in work, it became a rather pointless feature to the WWE roster.

But let’s put all that negativity to one side, well for the now at least, and let’s go back to 2002 where the brand split first occurred. In 2001 WCW folded and the company got sold to Vince McMahon, thus beginning the invasion angle, where a few WCW and ECW wrestlers would sign contracts with WWE. Guys like Booker T, Rhyno, Rob Van Dam, DDP, etc would all take a pay cut and join WWE. A lot of the top billed wrestlers refused to jump ship, mostly due to the low pay; there are of course exceptions to this such as Sting or Bret Hart. But whatever the reason the wrestlers had it meant the invasion angle lacked star power in the names of guys like Goldberg, Hogan, Bret, Savage, Sting, Flair, etc. And the bigger names that were bought in weren’t really booked as main eventers, even though in the case of Rob Van Dam and Booker T the support from the fans certainly seemed to be there.

The invasion angle came to a close at Survivor Series and saw the best of the WWE wrestlers go against the best of the Alliance members, which were mostly WWE wrestlers. Infact the only two that weren’t were Booker T and Rob Van Dam. Even though the match itself lacked star power from the wrestlers that were apart of WCW and ECW the match itself was a well portrayed end to the story of the invasion angle, with the obvious outcome of the WWE winning. Though back in those days being only 10 years old it wasn’t too obvious to me. But looking back now, it is clear to see that all the older fans knew what was coming. And of course the WWE would prevail within their own company at one of their big 4 PPV’s.

But following the PPV, there seemed to be one major glitch within the storyline. The idea was that either the Alliance or the WWE wrestlers would be out of a job, but in reality no one seemed to get fired. Infact, shortly after Survivor Series it was revealed that Shane and Stephanie McMahon had sold their share of the company to Ric Flair. The roster had gained the addition of Ric Flair, interesting that there was a storyline to cut the roster in half only to have it grow by one person. The addition of Ric Flair did however help build to a massive change within WWE. As the Ric Flair/Vince McMahon would be used to storyline the brand split. With Vince not wanting to share power with Ric, he instantly went back to being the heel boss and a rivalry broke out between them. This rivalry would see them fight at the Royal Rumble PPV, but it wouldn’t come to a head until several months later. However the board of directors did make a decision to keep these two apart and to do so they would each be given their own brand to run, thus turning their rivalry into a business rivalry. The brand split would also help address the issue of the growing roster at the time with several returns including Triple H and The nWo.

The original brand split, in order of selection featured:

On Smackdown: Vince McMahon, The Rock, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Hulk Hogan, Billy, Chuck, Rico, Edge, Rikishi, D-von, Mark Henry, Maven, Billy Kidman, Tajiri, Chris Jericho (Must hurt having only just lost the Undisputed Championship), Ivory, Albert, The Hurricane, Al Snow, Lance Storm, DDP, Torrie Wilson, Scotty 2 Hotty, Stacey Keibler, Christian, Test, Farooq, Tazz, Hardcore Holly, Val Venis, and Perry Saturn.

On Raw: Ric Flair, The Undertaker, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, X-Pac, Kane, RVD, Booker T, Big Show, Bubba Ray, Brock Lesnar, Paul Haymen, William Regal, Lita, Bradshaw, Steven Richards, Matt Hardy, Raven, Jeff Hardy, Mr. Perfect, Spike Dudley, D-lo Brown, Shawn Stasiak, Terri, Jaquline, Goldust, Trish Stratus, Justin Credible, Big Bossman, Tommy Dreamer, Crash Holly, and Mighty Molly.

This left Stone Cold and Triple H as free agents. Austin would sign with Raw and Triple H would be signed to Raw after losing the WWE Undisputed title to Raw Superstar; The Undertaker. So following the original brand split there were 32 members of the Smackdown roster and 34 members of the Raw roster. With the Undisputed Championship being defended against alternative shows and the champion being allowed to compete on both shows. With 66 members on their active roster, before taking into consideration announcers and referees, the brand split was a crucial thing to do n order to give all wrestlers a fair amount of exposure in the build up to PPV’s. The Flair/McMahon rivalry would eventually reach its climax on the June 10th edition of Raw, when Vince beat Flair in a No Holds Barred Match for sole ownership of the company. This could have effectively halted the brand extension. However with the WWE now being able to increase the amount of live events they could produce within a year from 200 to 350, it meant there was a much bigger opportunity for WWE to grow and make more money. It also meant they wouldn’t have to make a vast amount and they could infact keep their double sized roster.

The brand split got off to a good start with only the Undisputed Champion being able to cross over on the brands, and only the PPV’s would be featured as inter-promotional matches. With the company being able to grow, and with the expanded rosters, further change was implemented to make the brand split have significance. Following Vince McMahon winning full ownership, he appointed Eric Bishoff and Stephanie McMahon the new GM’s of Raw and Smackdown. And after allowing the wrestlers to jump ship if they so desired they were back on track to sticking to the brand separation. The brand separation was taken a step further following Summer Slam as it was announced that the WWE Championship would be exclusive to Smackdown. This lead to the World Heavyweight Championship being bought in on Raw, this would shortly after be unified with the IC belt. It also lead to the World Tag Team Championships and the Women’s Championship being made exclusive to Raw. The WWE Tag Team Championships were then bought in on Smackdown and along with the Cruiserweight Championship, it would mean each brand had three championships to be won. A World Champion, the Tag Team Champions, and a special classification championship.

By Survivor Series the brand extension was in full swing and had seen several big names make their returns, a wav of new wrestlers on each roster, the incredible quick rise of Brock Lesnar, the new addition of the elimination chamber, a change in structure to the title scene, and most importantly two separate rosters. Following on from the Attitude Era, the Brand Extension Era was shaping itself in its own way, and was doing so successfully. Of course there were some people that would have liked to see all the rosters stay mixed given how deep the talent pool was. And of course with the Attitude Era being over there were some that wouldn’t care for WWE anymore. But with all the changes made to WWE over 2002 it did well not to completely alienate the fans from them (excluding the Katie Vick storyline).

By WrestleMania XIX, a year after the Brand Extension, there was roughly 100 wrestlers signed to the WWE roster over the two brands. This is an increase of about 1/3 since the Brand Extension first took effect back in 2002. The increase in wrestlers across the company meant that further expansion was necessary for the Brand Extension to survive. As a result during 2003 the Brand Expansion would see both shows bring in mid card championships, over on Raw they bought back the IC belt that they unified with the World Heavyweight Championship 7 months earlier, whilst over on Smackdown they held a tournament to christen the first WWE united States Champion, which was done as a rechristened version of the WCW United States Championship which was unified with the IC Championship back at Survivor Series 2001. In 2003 we would also see the start of Brand separate PPV’s, starting with Bad Blood which was a Raw exclusive PPV. Followed up by the Smackdown exclusive PPV; Vengeance.

This then allowed for more exposure to be given to the newer talent and allowed them to compete on a grander stage. An opportunity a lot of them would otherwise been unlikely to receive. This just left the Big 4 PPV’s as inter-promotional PPV’s; Summer Slam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, and WrestleMania. The Brand Extension was now at a point where they could produce more PPV’s per year as a result of the minor PPV’s being brand exclusive. The WWE might have gone overkill with their PPV’s by having one every 3 weeks or so, but with them being brand separate PPV’s it meant that we would at least receive more build up for the rivalries between the PPV’s. It also meant we could have special inter-promotional matches at WrestleMania, helping give WrestleMania that feel, and keeping the brand extension looking significant. In the WrestleMania’s to come we would see this act repeated, and doing the same thing every year makes it seem less special as you know it is coming.

Now it is fair to say the Brand Extension did cause problems, perhaps most notably in 2004, where we saw Eddie Guerrero, JBL, and Booker who all started the year off in the tag team division jump up into the main event scene. We also saw Randy Orton become the youngest World Champion to spite Brock Lesnar who left the company earlier that year. The decision did nothing for Orton and was a case of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’ on the part of WWE. 2004 saw a few established main eventers leave the company, and as a result a few lesser established wrestlers were pushed to quickly replace them. Whilst it was a bit of a rocky road, WWE did manage to pull through and 2005 saw John Cena win his first WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21, and as he had been slowly pushed towards this point it seemed right at the time that he won it. During this time even though there were problems WWE stuck to the Brand Exclusive rosters to fix it.

In 2006 however this wasn’t the case, as we would see Kurt Angle jump ships from Raw to Smackdown in order to solve the issue of Batista having to forfeit the World Heavyweight Championship. Later on in that year WWE expanded their roster one step further by introducing ECW on Sci-Fi. This occurred a year after it was original going to, which meant that Shane O’Mac was no longer going to be running things behind the scenes, and it also meant that a few of the guys who would have been signed to ECW in 2005 weren’t in 2006, guys such as Rhyno and The Dudley Boyz. Instead the ECW brand was bought in with a rivalry against the Raw brand, watch with the WWE Champion RVD being drafted to ECW. ECW also gained the additions of The Big Show and Kurt Angle to help it seem like it was on equal playing field as the other two brands.

The problem with that being that RVD failed the wellness policy and was stripped of both the WWE and ECW Championship, and if that wasn’t bad enough WWE then lost Kurt Angle who at the time was at the top of their payroll and was considered to be their top talent. The two biggest players in the ECW brand were down and out before anything every really began. In response to this the ECW/Raw rivalry was scrapped and both brands moved on. Later that year we would see more brand cross over as the survivor series matches that were contested were contested with all of them having a mix from each brand, completely different to the years before. In 2003 and 2004 each brand would host their own Survivor Series match and in 2005 the brands would compete against each other. In 2006 however this was changed as for the first time all brands were competing along side each other. And if that wasn’t bad enough a week later at December To Dismember there was a tag team match featuring MNM vs. The Hardy Boyz.

The issue with this being that Jeff Hardy and Johnny Nitro were on Raw, and Matt Hardy and Joey Mercury were on Smackdown. Neither team were exclusive to one brand. Half the team were on Raw and the other half were on Smackdown, and this was the case for both teams. And to make it worse this cluttered Smackdown/Raw match was to be hosted on the ECW exclusive PPV. The rivalry then continued over on Smackdown PPV Armageddon. Armageddon also saw Raw’s WWE Champion John Cena team with Batista. New Years Resolution was back on track being Raw only, sadly though the IC bought featuring Jeff Hardy and Johnny Nitro wouldn’t end this rivalry as the two teams would face again at the Royal Rumble and even at No Way Out (also featuring Chris Benoit and MVP). The rivalry went on way too long, spanning over seven PPV’s. A rivalry that is exclusive to one brand should span that long, let alone one that features an inter-promotional rivalry in the lower card.

No Way Out also saw John Cena and Shawn Michaels compete against The Undertaker and Batista. If they hadn’t of gone overkill in the past few months by having Unforgiven, Cyber Sunday, December To Dismember, Armageddon, and even the lower card of No Way Out all filled with inter-promotional matches then I could have excepted this match as it was a way to set up to the two WrestleMania main event matches. Instead it was just yet more overload in the WWE doing inter-promotional rivalries. WWE worked hard to keep both the Raw and Smackdown brands apart throughout the years of 2002 to 2006. But by the end of 2006 they seemed not to care and just let the wrestlers fight on any PPV they liked. By Backlash 2007 WWE had given up with the brand separate PPV, and for the first time in four years they held a non Big 4 PPV as a joint PPV.

This was the moment that signalled the beginning of the end for the brand separation. Whilst at first the rosters were still signed to different brands, there were still a number of crossovers. Any wrestler that was able to make a name for themselves were immediately shipped over to Raw. ECW was stripped of their talent and only given mid carders to work with. The ECW and Smackdown roster were effectively joined together when they decided to tape both at once. Eventually ECW would be shut down. And in August 2011 the Brand Extension was effectively ended. All the work WWE put in over the 4 years of 2002 to 2006 was effectively thrown out the window when they bought in a third brand and for some unknown reason decided to go against the brand separation idea that they had put in motion a few years earlier.

So we’ve established that 2006 was the initial downfall of the Brand Extension which component was the moment where it first went wrong?

Well as established RVD being suspended and losing both titles caused the ECW brand to lose a lot of momentum. This then being followed by the departure of Kurt Angle pretty much crippled the ECW brand before it got a chance to even show us what it was worth. But for me this isn’t the moment that caused the Brand Extension to fail. It may have been the catalyst that started the chain of events, but WWE have bounced back from worse before. ECW still had some of their originals such as Sabu, The Sandman, and Tommy Dreamer. Plus RVD returned after his suspension was lifted. And in the mean time they had The Big Show to carry the brand. So the poor start of ECW for me was not the moment that ruined the Brand Extension. F anything it helped as it ended the rivalry with Raw and allowed them to go back to their own thing.

Until of course the ECW Champion got involved in the McMahon/DX rivalry over on Raw. Having the ECW Champion compete on Raw was truly the beginning of the end. I can understand the idea behind it, but if the biggest part of a brand is involved in a different brand’s rivalry then it starts to devalue the brand that they come from. What if Brock had only defended the title against Raw guys? It would have left Smackdown looking like a joke. Big Show was the man left to carry the ECW brand on his shoulders, and instead of flying those colour he spent his time on another brand. So for me the moment when The Big Show competed at Unforgiven was the moment the Brand Extension went wrong. It lead to multiple inter-promotional matches at Cyber Sunday. It lead into the Jeff Hardy vs. Johnny Nitro rivalry to be expanded into The Hardy Boyz vs. MNM, which took place over 7 PPV’s. It also saw WWE Champion John Cena put in multiple appearances on Smackdown PPV’s. And this all inevitably lead to the brand separate PPV’s being scrapped, and eventually the Brand Extension being scrapped all together.

WWE put in a lot of effort to differentiate the Brand Extension Era from the Attitude Era, and to begin with it was a success. It had a few bumps in the road along the way, but overall it was very successful. And it gave a larger platform for the expanded roster to compete on. By 2003, a year after it was created, it had managed to fully form itself with each brand having an exclusive roster and 4 championships as well as a series of their own brand exclusive PPV’s. This was a successful format up until 2006 where they allowed ECW Champion Big Show to be involved in a Raw rivalry. And from there on in, it was all down hill for the Brand Extension. WWE ignored their own concept and effectively ruined the format of the show which they spent a year building (2002 to 2003), and then three years preserving (2003 to 2006). So in conclusion;

The moment that the brand extension went wrong was the moment they allowed The Big Show to compete in a Hell in a Cell match at the Raw PPV Unforgiven.

[WWE Gary]

Great post Macho .

In my opinion the brand split should never have happened the way it did in the beginning . It's safe to say Vince and co screwed up the biggest opportunity ever in wrestling history after purchasing WCW . I think most people would agree that Vince should have split the company into two brands . At the time there were too many athletes on the roster to have just one brand . But Vince should have split the company into WWF and WCW . In the months that passed after the Invasion storyline he had enough big names from the old WCW to run with a great promotion . Guys like Goldberg , NWO , Scott Steiner , Flair and others could have kept the name of WCW alive while pushing some up and coming athletes up into main event level to take over when the big recognizable names retired. Instead of burying WCW , Vince should have made it a big deal . To this day we could be still watching the WCW title been fought for on PPVs and TV shows . Instead we see the Gold Belt relegated to the level of opening match on a PPV . Shame really . So in my opinion , the brand extension went wrong from the very beginning .

[Turley]

I totally agree. That Nitro where Shane McMahon turned up should have been the beginning of a controlled Monday night wars.

[Goldie79]

They should have been kept as 2 separate companys a WWE and a WCW.
Let Shane run WCW as a separate promotion.... and have a friendly rivalry with Vince!
If Shane and Vince were in compertition (albeit not a fierce one)... it would have kept the WWE on its toes, without any compertition the WWE lost its edge and got complacent.

Having 2 world titles in a single promotion got confusing... who is THE world champ?
Though RAW remained the premier brand... it watered down the prestige of the world titles. There is no longer an Undisputed champ for the promotion! It became fragmented.
Even with numerous NWA territories... there was still only one undisputed NWA World champion (say Ric Flair or Harley Race). It was clear to all who the champ was.

WCW could have retained the 24 or so contracts that the WWE bough out... and even if Sting, Nash & co would remain at home whilst their Time Warner contracts paid up. The ECW guys such as Rhyno, RVD, Tajiri would ahve found a home in the new WCW.... and midcarders who had grown stale in the WWE, could jump ship and start afresh in WCW.
In fact wrestlers jumping ship could be written into the storylines.... say Vince gets pissed because Shane offers Chris Jericho more money (in the storyline) so Jericho moves across.

With a WCW they could have run an 'Invasion type' PPV once a year with WWE vs WCW.
As long as it was kept to one show a year and not over-exposed... I think that this Invasion PPV could have emerged as a 'Top 4 PPV' ... drawing in buys that only Wrestlemania, The Rumble.... and possibly Summerslam could deliver.
Survivor Series is no longer regarded as a major PPV.... its numbers draw the same as the B- Status PPVs.
I'm sure than an annual WWE vs WCW PPV could have become a big PPV attraction.

Hindsight eh?...

[Mr. Tambourine Man]

Very good read.

I think we're all in agreement on them keeping WCW as a separate brand.

With RAW and Smackdown, even on the brand splits best day, it was still very much the same fans watching both shows. There was no real brand loyalty with those products. Tons of WCW fans stopped watching wrestling shortly after the Invasion ended. There was nothing left for them to watch.

And IF Vince really wanted just two WWE brands: RAW and Smackdown, he needed to do a much better job differentiating the two. I can vaguely remember Smackdown had the better wrestlers, while RAW was more story driven, but that's about it. The rules were the same on both shows. The arena set up mostly the same. They would advertise eachother's shows. There would be inter-promotional shows way too often.

When ECW debuted as its own brand, for the first few weeks WWE did it outside of the Hammerstein Ballroom. I think that was a glimpse of a brand split that works; of course until they moved ECW onto the Smackdown tour. With that show, it had an entirely different look, different type of wrestling, and most importantly the fans didn't seem like the type of fans you would catch at a WWE show. If Vince could have done the same thing with the initial RAW/Smackdown brand split, I think he could tapped into an audience that otherwise wouldn't care.

[AJ]

I don't mind the Two brands but the Titles should have been unified long ago. Make Raw your Flagship show which only features Top-tier talent while Smackdown should be mid-carders stage where IC and US titles should be defended. This way the talent would have been filtered equally and we wouldn't had to see those unnecessary "pushes". As far as ECW is concerned it was was just sad attempt to gain old ECW fans which failed miserably.

[The Legend Killer]

Great post Macho Man. Anyway, alot of people say that WWE should have just had 2 shows, WCW and WWE. The problem with that, isn't just a brand split? It would have faced the same problem as Raw and SmackDown!, one show would have been used as the top show, and, eventually would have just had to have a brand sp;lit. I'm not saying it was a good idea. Well, at the time, maybe it was. It was an interesting thing to try, and i'm sure we all knew of the obvious problems that would occur like the same feuds over and over, and obviously a limited roster. I can't say it was a great idea, but, it was at least an interesting idea to try, I will give them that. At the time, both brands had great superstars that could have done great work for their brand. SmackDown! alone had The Rock, Kurt Angle, Edge, Hulk Hogan, and Chris Jericho. All of them were already superstars.

As time went on though, around 2004 i'd say, that was when WWE should have ended the brand extension. Yeah, rising superstars like John Cena and Randy Orton were getting a name for themselves, and some of their talent were already gone, or at that point where they couldn't put on an incredible match anymore. Hulk Hogan was gone, The Rock was goen, Kevin Nash was gone, Scott Hall was gone, Brock Lesnar was leaving (actually, he had already left I think), etc. Taker was at that point where he couldn't put on epic matches anymore (Really, I think his WrestlreMania match with Orton was his final great match. He's had good matches since, but, i'm talking about where he could work with anyone). Yes, at this point, new superstars were around, some talent was shown, but, that limited brand crap was only hurting the company. Really, you can't have every great superstar on Raw, and give SmackDown! all the mid-card guys, you got to have a nice equal there you know?

It should have been at that point that Vince said, "OK, the brand extension is over". Yeah, it was fun once in awhile to have a Raw VS SmackDown! thing, but, even that wasn't that great. Honestly, I see nothing good that came from the brand extension. I know by the time it did end, yeah, guys like Randy Orton and John Cena were main eventers, CM Punk was showing some promise, but, think of 2 of those names, when you watched Raw, which one of those names was just shoved down your throat? Even when he wasn't champion, or even able to wrestle!!!!!!!!! The brand split gave WWE the ability to just think of one superstar, each brand had to have that ONE superstar, and people got sick of them. How sick did people get of Batista after awhile? WWE finally figured out, "Oh yeah, some of our other talent won't always be here, we have to have ONE superstar for each brand. Cena, Batista, you're it!", and we got sick of them.

Again, the brand split was an interesting idea, I guess the beginning of it was probably the best part since it was new, but, once around 2004 came, it should have been stopped, it got old, and it just wasn't entertaining.

[Macho Man]

I feel you are all overlooking one fundamental factor. Running two separate companies is a lot different to running one company with two different brands. If WWE were to keep WCW open for business then they would have seen an extreme increase in expenditure. Perhaps not a problem for a multi-billion dollar company. But there is certainly the possibility that running two companies would see them drop down to only being a multi-million dollar company. At the end of the day WWE is a business, and the purpose of all businesses is to make a profit. Running two separate companies would have proven to be an uphill battle for WWE, and they would have a large amount of expenditure that would see there profits sharply fall. Sure, they would have two separate audiences to produce their inflows, but it wouldn’t have lasted. Sooner or later WCW would have turned into a WWE product. Do you really think the WCW Company would have survived the PG era? When WWE went through the change, do you think that WCW wouldn’t have changed as well? Bit by bit WCW would have had their original product watered down until it resembled WWE. Look at ECW, when it was bought back they had the main event of very match as an Extreme Rules Match, but soon after it was bought back they dropped that and it became another WWE product. WCW may have lasted for a while, but after a certain period of time it would have just been another carbon copy of WWE.

With it being two companies even the simple outflows would be doubled. They wouldn’t just be able to advertise it as one company, they would have to do all their advertising twice over, once for WWE, and then again for WCW. As I outlined in my first post WWE was able to produce around 200 shows a year, if they did allow WCW to stay as a second company then they would likely try to do the same for WCW. This would be 400 shows a year produced over the two companies. Vince would have to have a team of staff for WWE, a team of staff for WCW, and then yet another team of staff to oversee both companies. The staff overseeing both companies would have to make sure there are no clashes with each product. And this wouldn’t just be the actual dates of the shows, this would also include locations, times, where to advertise, how they advertise, as well as many other things. The organisational skills needed to run two similar companies parallel to one another would have needed to be insanely good. I’m talking about an OCD level of organisational skills. And even then they would still need a large team to check over every little detail. Otherwise little things would fall through the cracks and would result in bad business. Producing that many shows a year would have been ridiculous, and with WCW inevitably going to end up being like the WWE, then there would be even more complaints about how many PPV’s there were being produced each year.

What’s more, with the amount of shows they would be producing, fans would soon become irate. This would be guaranteed to happen eventually for two reasons. The first, as I’ve already stated, would be because the WCW product would have eventually been watered down to another WWE product. The second being that the increased outflows would have caused issues for WWE. These issues would have seen WWE go through a process of cost cutting. This would have seen them axe the WCW guys that they felt didn’t fit into their vision. And would have also likely seen a cut back in certain aspects of the shows from the arenas, the gimmicks, the matches, the costumes, etc. Cost cutting would have gone over the top and a lot of fans would have become irate. Also there would be the issue of trying to keep two separate audiences over the two separate companies. Whilst I can understand where everyone is coming from with the idea that keeping WCW alive would have been good for the fans and would have theoretically been a better way to keep the entire expanded roster employed, it seems like everyone is overlooking the fact that we are talking about a company that had folded. If they were to have done this they would have first had to rebuild the WCW audience in order to make it a viable business again. This would have sunk a lot of time and money into the company, and potentially caused WWE to get neglected. Which means WWE would then need more attention, causing WCW to get neglected, and then around and around it goes.

The bottom line here is that running two businesses that would have been in direct competition with each other just isn’t a viable business idea. It would have been an incredibly stupid financial decision for them to have taken that route, and could have potentially seen both companies get into trouble financially. And could have even seen one or even both of them having to file for bankruptcy, causing the entire roster of that company to become unemployed. There are so many issues that would have come from this that it means it just wouldn’t be a viable idea.

If however you are all proposing that WCW be kept as the second brand, and it all be run by one company. So say they would have Raw and Nitro then there wouldn’t be any difference to the actual brand split that happened. Nitro wouldn’t have kept its time slot; WWE is smart enough to know that having two shows air at the same time will cause at least one show to lose ratings. And with Raw being the flagship brand of the original company it would have seen Nitro move into a new time slot, most likely replacing Smackdown. Even if it was kept as a separate company Nitro would have still been moved to a later time slot so that it didn’t clash with Raw. The proof of this is with Smackdown. Smackdown used to air on Thursday nights, but it was moved to Friday nights to avoid clashing with TNA Impact. Even though WWE is clearly ahead of TNA in terms of ratings, Vince isn’t going to risk losing even a minor percentage of his audience to a rival company. So he definitely is going to allow his own ratings to fall because he is putting it in competition with his other company. Having the brand split a year earlier would have seen it get off to a better start as everyone was already signed to a separate rosters. But it wouldn’t have lasted.

Raw and Smackdown got off to a good start as separate brands, as they stuck to their own brands. But as time progressed the brand split grew weaker and weaker. More inter-promotional matches occurred, and the very concept of the brand split became pointless. This would still have occurred if the brands were Raw and Nitro instead of Raw and Smackdown. Also the idea that it would have had more WCW guys is also flawed as the reason the WWE wasn’t able to sign the WCW guys was due to the massively reduced salaries they were offered. What difference would have keeping the WCW brand done to this? “You’ll receive a massive pay cut, but at least you’ll still wrestle on WCW”. Somehow I don’t see that line working. Guys like Goldberg would have still defected from WCW. Whilst others like Bret Hart wouldn’t have signed due to it being owned by Vince McMahon. A Nitro brand may have proven more successful then having the Smackdown brand. But the same fundamental flaws would have still existed. And would have still had the same end result.

Either way, whether it was kept as a separate company, or if it was used instead of Smackdown as the second brand, it wouldn’t have proven anymore successful. There is a reason that WCW failed, and keeping the company going wouldn’t have been viable for business. Whilst a WCW brand would have been basically the same as the Smackdown brand. Perhaps it would have had a bit more personality, but the ECW brand didn’t work, so why would the WCW brand? Either way it wouldn’t have worked.

[Darth Shizzel]

It didn't help things that alot of the WCW main players decided to sit out their contracts we could've seen Sting and Goldberg in the E helping the WCW side of things and Eric Bischoff would've been the leader instead of Stephanie and Shane.

[Goldie79]

I take note anout the financial costs involved Macho, but I still think it could have worked.
Particularly the big PPV revenue a WWE vs WCW card each year had the potential to generate.
Superstars defecting from RAW to Smackdown or vice versa has never been a big deal. From WWE to WCW or vice versa it always was.
As long as Vince and Shane still pretended to be fierce rivals onscreen.... raiding each others talent would still create fresh storylines, and freshen up the rosters.

Yes Vince would own WCW... but if he let Shane run it independently, without any involvement (and that goes for Stephaine too), I think Shane could have turned the fortune of the company around. WCW was already cutting costs dramatically in the last 6 months but it was too late by that point.
Many of the high earners were already gone (such as Hogan/Hart)... and Shane wouldn't have had to throw silly money at WCW performers... because where else would they go??
I always thought that Shane had a good brain for the business.... Who knows had Shane been given WCW he may well still be in the business today (he saw the WWE as Triple H-Stephanie show). Give Shane a realistic budget... forget the lazy 40 something year olds who were just there for the money... swipe the old ECW talent (who were lost in the WWE roster)... and take a few WWE midcarders along to retain a bit of interest from the WWE audience

When WWE resurrected ECW it was a disaster... the WWE watered down the original product.
However what I'm saying about WCW is to let Shane run it without any involvement from Vince, Stephanie or Triple H.
It doesn't have to be regarded as a 'poor mans WWE' if Vince isn't allowed to treat it as such.
Aim low at first... and slowly build up... much like TNA has been doing.