Smackdown VS Raw: September 2016

[Dagger Dias]

The first month of re-branded PPV's has now passed. We have seen the first Smackdown exclusive show and the first Raw exclusive event under the new Brand Extension. New Champions were crowned and an added sense of importance has been seen for both the red brand and the blue brand. The question is though.... which brand had the better PPV event this month? Let's take a look at both shows.



Smackdown - Backlash 2016

1. Alexa Bliss VS Becky Lynch VS Carmella VS Natalya VS Naomi VS Nikki Bella [Elimination match to become the first Smackdown Women's Champion]

2. Hype Bros VS The Usos [Winner advances to the Smackdown Tag Team Championship match]

3. Dolph Ziggler VS The Miz [Intercontinental Championship]

4. Bray Wyatt VS Kane

5. Rhyno & Heath Slater VS The Usos [Winner becomes the first Smackdown Tag Team Champions]

6. AJ Styles VS Dean Ambrose [World Heavyweight Championship]




Raw - Clash Of Champions 2016

1. The New Day VS Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows [Raw Tag Team Championship]

2. TJ Perkins VS Brian Kendrick [Cruiserweight Championship]

3. Cesaro VS Sheamus

4. Chris Jericho VS Sami Zayn

5. Charlotte VS Sasha Banks VS Bayley [Triple threat match for the Raw Women's Championship]

6. Rusev (with Lana) VS Roman Reigns [United States Championship]

7. Kevin Owens VS Seth Rollins [Universal Championship]





Here are the discussion questions for this topic:


Did the red brand or the blue brand have the best event this month, and why?

What was the worst match between these two shows?

What was the best match out of what took place on these two shows?


Please keep the forum rules in mind and do NOT spam.

Discuss!

 

[L@RISANO]

1) Both had some good matches, but in terms of the storytelling and the prospects of the follow-up, I have to give the win to SmackDown here due to the new titles and the World title change that happened. It definitely gave me enthusiasm to watch the SmackDown after Backlash.
As for RAW, yes my favourite Roman Reigns is the new US Champion, but he'll probably get a rematch with Rusev and the Universal title stuff gave me nothing whatsoever, likewise the Women's title.


2) I'd choose Backlash: Bray Wyatt vs Kane. That was clearly a plan B and it showed.



3) There were quite a few good matches. Special mention of Clash of Champions: Cesaro vs Sheamus for which I had zero interest, but those 2 got me interested in what they were doing.
Best for me was Backlash: AJ Styles vs Dean Ambrose. Both guys did well and they told a story in the match, especially at the end with the low blow stuff, ntm, the title change was refreshing as it was begging for AJ Styles due to his huge momentum at present.

 

[SharpShootingCrossface]

SD live without a doubt. I buzz off Owens and Seth, but backlash was miles better than clash of champions.

Personally looking forward to survivor series, cena, aj, wyatt Ambrose and Orton facing reigns, Seth, ko and new day, that'll rule!!

 

[@smarkmouth]

Here are the discussion questions for this topic:

Did the red brand or the blue brand have the best event this month, and why?

There's will be better points than my own raised on this question, but here's a minor detail that I believe made all the difference in the world; timing. RAW made their PPV last the entire three hours, and in a main event that featured two of my favorite wrestlers, I was fatigued by opening bell.

On the blue brand, the opening bell between AJ and Dean was far closers to the 10:00 mark. The rest of the card comfortably filled the previous two hours, and giving the main event the potential of going one full hour, without indulging and giving in to doing so, captivated me. If for no other reason, Backlash had a stronger card for this alone.

What was the worst match between these two shows?

I'd give this category to Usos vs Hype Bros, but it served a larger story. We're it not for the stakes in this match, it would have felt like filler. Meanwhile, CWC had a championship match that felt like filler; Kendrick v Perkins. This was at fault of the build up. The match was decent enough, but failing to introduce TJ on this past Raw subtracted from the anticipation of this.

What was the best match out of what took place on these two shows?

Despite the finish, Sheamus vs Cesaro was a treat. Personally, I think they should have indulged the crowd's "let them fight" chant. Had the match continued at that point, this would have been remembered as something special. Despite the finish, I think they proved critics, myself included.

 

[Dagger Dias]

When ranking the two events against each other and looking back on them both.... the blue brand won this month. You had a the crowning of the very first Smackdown Women's Champion in Becky Lynch, the great ending to the Smackdown Tag Team Championship tournament, and the excellent Styles VS Ambrose main event. There wasn't a bad match on that show. The historical moments and the main event are enough for me to pick Backlash over Clash Of Champions. The red brand still had a good show this month too. The worst for me was Reigns VS Rusev. There wasn't a horrible match on either card and that one was getting boring, it dragged on a bit. Runner up would be Cesaro VS Sheamus for that horrible ending, without even getting into how boring that whole stupid feud was. The best for me was Styles VS Ambrose at Backlash. It proved that Smackdown still can be the "A show". The Raw Women's Championship triple threat is right behind it though, it was awesome.

 

[Azane]

Smackdown's event gave in to crowd pressure, and had who needed to win, win making transitions and crowning new champions that improve the product. It's no wonder, with Smackdown itself already being the better product (imo), that the PPV event was better.

I think the 3 horseladies outdid the 6 pack challenge from smackdown, I think Sasha, Charlotte and Bayley work amazing together, while the Smackdown Match did a better job introducing us to the newer women.

Title Match; I think Raw's Match was going great, but the screwjobbery overshadowed the match and made it end way too ugly. Dean put on his best match of his career, and AJ was AJ, Smackdown wins the overall World title match, but not by much.

Midcard title; Miz and Ziggler, they seem to have some great chemistry and brought out the best of eachother. It was a really great midcard bout. Roman vs Russev, well, Roman lying on his back for 80% of the match and being limited to 3 or 4 moves in his entire arsenal, made it the usual borefest. They still have Roman doing face motions when he's being booed and attacking women, I don't understand why he's still labeled a face. Team Blue wins BIG here.

Throwaway matches; Cesaro vs Sheamus, Screw you WWE, Having 7 matches (Well 11 if you count the 4 weeks they fought before the best of 7 started), let's make it 8(12) weeks in a row. Seriously, Cesaro vs Sheamus 12 is something nobody wants to see. It was a good match, but the payoff, at least for me, was not seeing them wrestle anymore. Also, Finisheritis, when having 6 finishers in a match doesn't end it, it doesn't make it epic, it makes the finisher look weak. This series is dragging the entire card down, and oh boy, Sheamus vs Cesaro at Hell In a Cell! can't wait. I bet they don't even use the cell as a weapon like a couple matches in the cell last year.

The rest of the matches (tag and Cruiserweight, and Jericho burying Sami) I really don't think factored into the overall show much for me, so I'm not going to really rate them.

Worst match; Cesaro vs Sheamus, seriously, ending a best of 7 in a no contest is the biggest middle finger to the people paying to watch this crap. End it. Please. They could put on a 6 star match, but if it's the 12th match in a series, It's pointless.

Best Match; Charlotte, Sasha and Bayley. It told the story between the 3 ladies well, it setup Bayley and Sasha, Even Dana looked good doing her thing, the only negative on the match was.... a big boot for a 3 count, in a world where we had 11 finisher kickouts in 7 matches, We had a match end with a big boot in 2016, but the match itself shows why the women are being taken seriously.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

From an overall perspective, I gave the edge to Backlash but, in my opinion, that's not to say that COC was a bad show. On the contrary, I thought Clash was an entertaining show, but there were just things going on with Backlash that helped it stand out.

SmackDown Live doesn't have a whole helluva lot of guys who're established as people to watch as to who could be "top tier guys" like Raw does. The reason for that is that there are guys on the blue brand who haven't been used to their full potential, such as Bray Wyatt, or there are guys who literally just arrived, like American Alpha, or there are guys who've jobbed for years, like Heath Slater, or guys who have spent the past several years just sort of drifting until recently, such as the Miz. With that being said, however, the blue brand is doing more with less in an entertaining way. Truth be told, there are times when I'm watching SmackDown Live that I most definitely get an NXT sort of vibe due to booking consistency and storytelling; I know that Ryan Ward, former head booker of NXT, is booking SmackDown Live and the fact that he's one of Triple H's guys is a good thing as the guy's got some pull. Ward also is a writer for Raw, but the writers on Raw who have seniority over him are Ranjin Singh and Edward Koskey; they're Vince's guys and I'd say that Vince ultimately allows Ward & Triple H more creative freedom on the blue brand.

While I thought COC may have had the overall stronger card in terms of match quality, there were some matches at Backlash that were better than some at COC and vice versa, Backlash told better stories and it had a fresh feeling about it in that there were inaugural champions being crowned, Miz had what may have been the greatest match of his career with Ziggler & has been a great heel IC champ and we saw AJ Styles win the WWE World Championship after a helluva match with Dean Ambrose. There were just a lot of "feel good" moments at Backlash that coincidentally happened to be the best moves to make for the blue brand's product.

 

[Hyorinmaru]

I voted for Backlash.

Both were good wrestling wise so for me this goes down to booking.

Backlash was booked in a way that both entertained me and made sense from a booking perspective while making me want to tune in to the next Episode of Smackdown Live.

Clash of Champions was the exact opposite. Outside of the first two matches the booking was horrible and left me scratching my head. While I was entertained the booking brought it down to the point I'm done with RAW for a while.