Well, can we?
I have to preface this post by saying that I have been really enjoying some aspects of Smackdown recently. I don't consider myself to be a huge AJ Styles fan but I am willing to tell you that I have been really picking up what he has been throwing down recently. Beating John Cena has been the makings of AJ Styles and he has been a very good aspect of what is going on during Tuesday nights. That said, there is a huge disparity between Raw and Smackdown in terms of talents and in terms of belief from the WWE. In this post, I want to try and illustrate this as best as possible and get some discussion going as to how best to address this imbalance.
First of all, I want to give you a complete rundown of all of the talents on each show.
If my count is correct, Raw has 51 active superstars: be it men, women or cruiserweight superstars. Smackdown, on the other hand has 36 men and women that fill their respective roster. Which brings me to my first point. Having watched Raw last night, I couldn't help but notice that a lot of the wrestkers listed didn't even get any screen time whatsoever. People like The Big Show, Goldust, R-Truth, Darren Young and Jinder Mahal went completely unused and talents like Sami Zayn only got to interrupt the end of Jericho's promo. Conversely, I totally believe that most of the superstars on Smackdown will have something to do tonight. Because the fact remains that Raw has too many superstars to fill a 3 hour Raw and Smackdown doesn't quite have enough to fill a 2 hour show.
The sad fact about all of the Brand Extension stuff, is that the WWE wanted us all to believe that things were going to be equal. But I think we knew from the moment that Raw got 3 draft picks and Smackdown got 2 that wasn't really the case. The other thing that didn't get much attention was that Raw always got to go first. So they were taking, not only, more talent but also bigger name talents. The biggest example of this I can give is back at Backlash. The show ended about 45 minutes before the usual mark because there was absolutely nothing the WWE could do to fill the time. Smackdown just does not have the talent to cover such a time frame and have already reached out for more talent to address this (Read: Jack Swagger). When you compare the card that Backlash had to the projected card for Clash of Champions, there is absolutely no doubt about which show has more big name talent.
So, my questions is this: We all knew that Smackdown would get the raw deal when it came to the draft (no pun intended) but why does it have to be so apparent? Raw also got the Cruiserweight division added to their ranks on Monday night and, in that, have a whole new pool of talent to dip into to fill their three hours of air time. So if they want to give the Cruiserweights some more time on Raw, it surely frees up some time for some of the talent already on Raw to go to Smackdown and make it look as if the WWE actually care about the blue brand a little.
Like I said, I think Smackdown has been doing fine with 2 hour slots on TV but it is when it comes to stretching to a 3 hour PPV that it becomes very apparent that Raw will forever be the favoured show. I'm not asking for a huge overhaul of the shows, I just want to ask the question, what can be done to address the imbalance?
I have to preface this post by saying that I have been really enjoying some aspects of Smackdown recently. I don't consider myself to be a huge AJ Styles fan but I am willing to tell you that I have been really picking up what he has been throwing down recently. Beating John Cena has been the makings of AJ Styles and he has been a very good aspect of what is going on during Tuesday nights. That said, there is a huge disparity between Raw and Smackdown in terms of talents and in terms of belief from the WWE. In this post, I want to try and illustrate this as best as possible and get some discussion going as to how best to address this imbalance.
First of all, I want to give you a complete rundown of all of the talents on each show.
Raw:
Male Superstars:
Big Cass
Big E
Big Show
Bo Dallas
Braun Strowman
Brock Lesnar
Cesaro
Chris Jericho
Curtis Axel
Darren Young
Enzo Amore
Epico
Finn Balor
Goldust
Jinder Mahal
Karl Anderson
Kevin Owens
Luke Gallows
Mark Henry
Neville
Primo
R-Truth
Roman Reigns
Rusev
Sami Zayn
Seth Rollins
Sheamus
Sin Cara
Titus O'Neil
Triple H
Xavier Woods
Akira Tozawa
Brian Kendrick
Cedric Alexander
Gran Metalik
Jack Gallagher
Johnny Gargano
Noam Dar
Rich Swann
TJ Perkins
Tomasso Ciampa
Women's Superstar's:
Alicia Fox
Bayley
Charlotte
Dana Brooke
Lana
Nia Jax
Paige
Sasha Banks
Summer Rae
Smackdown:
Male Superstars:
Aiden English
AJ Styles
Apollo Crews
Baron Corbin
Bray Wyatt
Chad Gable
Curt Hawkins
Dean Ambrose
Dolph Ziggler
Erick Rowan
Fandango
Heath Slater
Jack Swagger
Jason Jordan
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
John Cena
Kalisto
Kane
Konnor
The Miz
Mojo Rawley
Randy Orton
Rhyno
Simon Gotch
Tyler Breeze
Viktor
Zack Ryder
Women's Superstars:
Alexa Bliss
Becky Lynch
Carmella
Eva Marie
Naomi
Natalya
Nikki Bella
Male Superstars:
Big Cass
Big E
Big Show
Bo Dallas
Braun Strowman
Brock Lesnar
Cesaro
Chris Jericho
Curtis Axel
Darren Young
Enzo Amore
Epico
Finn Balor
Goldust
Jinder Mahal
Karl Anderson
Kevin Owens
Luke Gallows
Mark Henry
Neville
Primo
R-Truth
Roman Reigns
Rusev
Sami Zayn
Seth Rollins
Sheamus
Sin Cara
Titus O'Neil
Triple H
Xavier Woods
Akira Tozawa
Brian Kendrick
Cedric Alexander
Gran Metalik
Jack Gallagher
Johnny Gargano
Noam Dar
Rich Swann
TJ Perkins
Tomasso Ciampa
Women's Superstar's:
Alicia Fox
Bayley
Charlotte
Dana Brooke
Lana
Nia Jax
Paige
Sasha Banks
Summer Rae
Smackdown:
Male Superstars:
Aiden English
AJ Styles
Apollo Crews
Baron Corbin
Bray Wyatt
Chad Gable
Curt Hawkins
Dean Ambrose
Dolph Ziggler
Erick Rowan
Fandango
Heath Slater
Jack Swagger
Jason Jordan
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
John Cena
Kalisto
Kane
Konnor
The Miz
Mojo Rawley
Randy Orton
Rhyno
Simon Gotch
Tyler Breeze
Viktor
Zack Ryder
Women's Superstars:
Alexa Bliss
Becky Lynch
Carmella
Eva Marie
Naomi
Natalya
Nikki Bella
If my count is correct, Raw has 51 active superstars: be it men, women or cruiserweight superstars. Smackdown, on the other hand has 36 men and women that fill their respective roster. Which brings me to my first point. Having watched Raw last night, I couldn't help but notice that a lot of the wrestkers listed didn't even get any screen time whatsoever. People like The Big Show, Goldust, R-Truth, Darren Young and Jinder Mahal went completely unused and talents like Sami Zayn only got to interrupt the end of Jericho's promo. Conversely, I totally believe that most of the superstars on Smackdown will have something to do tonight. Because the fact remains that Raw has too many superstars to fill a 3 hour Raw and Smackdown doesn't quite have enough to fill a 2 hour show.
The sad fact about all of the Brand Extension stuff, is that the WWE wanted us all to believe that things were going to be equal. But I think we knew from the moment that Raw got 3 draft picks and Smackdown got 2 that wasn't really the case. The other thing that didn't get much attention was that Raw always got to go first. So they were taking, not only, more talent but also bigger name talents. The biggest example of this I can give is back at Backlash. The show ended about 45 minutes before the usual mark because there was absolutely nothing the WWE could do to fill the time. Smackdown just does not have the talent to cover such a time frame and have already reached out for more talent to address this (Read: Jack Swagger). When you compare the card that Backlash had to the projected card for Clash of Champions, there is absolutely no doubt about which show has more big name talent.
So, my questions is this: We all knew that Smackdown would get the raw deal when it came to the draft (no pun intended) but why does it have to be so apparent? Raw also got the Cruiserweight division added to their ranks on Monday night and, in that, have a whole new pool of talent to dip into to fill their three hours of air time. So if they want to give the Cruiserweights some more time on Raw, it surely frees up some time for some of the talent already on Raw to go to Smackdown and make it look as if the WWE actually care about the blue brand a little.
Like I said, I think Smackdown has been doing fine with 2 hour slots on TV but it is when it comes to stretching to a 3 hour PPV that it becomes very apparent that Raw will forever be the favoured show. I'm not asking for a huge overhaul of the shows, I just want to ask the question, what can be done to address the imbalance?