Why Brand Extension in the WWF never worked

[TheHorndogSays]

I've never understood why people feel the Brand Extension FAILED. In my opinion it didn't fail, it gave both shows a good quality blend of veterans with up and comers. I've always said John Cena owes his career to the brand extension. I feel for the most part all 3 shows did have a different feel to them with Raw being the more edgier/storyline based program while Smackdown was more wrestling based and ECW was a more ground roots based product that also had it's successes (former champion Miz and current champion Punk). Were there some years where either both shows weren't that good or just one of them? Yes but that is to be expected I believe. I've also always felt Edge would have NEVER made it to the main event level had it not been for the Brand Extension. The brand extension was made as a way to spread out the talent pool and build future stars which it did in both regards so I consider that a success.

The biggest rebuttal against my claims has always been "it only made 2 stars and not multiple stars like the attitude era". I think that has more to do with the creative side of things than it does the brand extension. If you think about it in the past 30 years there have been 4 true "eras". Each era ONLY made a handful of MAIN EVENT stars in their time. 80s made Hogan, Savage, Warrior. 90s brought us HBK, Bret, Taker. The attitude era brought us HHH, Kane, Austin, and Rock. The Brand extension brought us Cena, Edge, Batista and Lesnar. The new Internet darling era has brought us Punk and Bryan so the amount of stars is NOT that much different. Now I'm sure there are some of you who want to add one or two to one of the above eras but it won't change the numbers that much.

I think the real "root" of the problems is simply that the career of a wrestler is slowly getting shorter and shorter with each generation due to excess schedule (although I would argue that Flair did more than ANYONE and is still doing it today) or them finding outside projects like television and movies so having someone like Taker who wrestled heavily in 90s, attitude, and brand extension just isn't seen as much these days.

 

[midgensa]

As a couple of posters have stated. The brand extension was very much needed when it first started ... they have just mucked it up too much over time.

I think one of the biggest problems was that they do not really feel like separate shows. I don't feel like I have to see Smackdown! to see those storylines or have to see RAW to see those ... I know they will be extended on both shows now and that does not make a whole lot of sense to me.

There was a time when SD was very much its own thing and RAW was very much its own thing and I enjoyed watching both of them. There was also a time when ECW had a ton of talent and was regularly putting on solid television. The problem though ... is eventually it all has to come back together for the PPVs.

PPVs in the long run killed the brand extension because nobody enjoyed the SD or RAW only PPVs and once you started merging talent on the PPVs then it was inevitably going to merge on the weekly products as well.

I am not against the OP thought process on making three very different shows that appeal to different audiences ... but I don't know that it would make a huge difference in ratings or cash flow ... and it would limit the crossover appeal for sure.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

I've never understood why people feel the Brand Extension FAILED. In my opinion it didn't fail, it gave both shows a good quality blend of veterans with up and comers. I've always said John Cena owes his career to the brand extension. I feel for the most part all 3 shows did have a different feel to them with Raw being the more edgier/storyline based program while Smackdown was more wrestling based and ECW was a more ground roots based product that also had it's successes (former champion Miz and current champion Punk). Were there some years where either both shows weren't that good or just one of them? Yes but that is to be expected I believe. I've also always felt Edge would have NEVER made it to the main event level had it not been for the Brand Extension. The brand extension was made as a way to spread out the talent pool and build future stars which it did in both regards so I consider that a success.

The biggest rebuttal against my claims has always been "it only made 2 stars and not multiple stars like the attitude era". I think that has more to do with the creative side of things than it does the brand extension. If you think about it in the past 30 years there have been 4 true "eras". Each era ONLY made a handful of MAIN EVENT stars in their time. 80s made Hogan, Savage, Warrior. 90s brought us HBK, Bret, Taker. The attitude era brought us HHH, Kane, Austin, and Rock. The Brand extension brought us Cena, Edge, Batista and Lesnar. The new Internet darling era has brought us Punk and Bryan so the amount of stars is NOT that much different. Now I'm sure there are some of you who want to add one or two to one of the above eras but it won't change the numbers that much.

I think the real "root" of the problems is simply that the career of a wrestler is slowly getting shorter and shorter with each generation due to excess schedule (although I would argue that Flair did more than ANYONE and is still doing it today) or them finding outside projects like television and movies so having someone like Taker who wrestled heavily in 90s, attitude, and brand extension just isn't seen as much these days.

It's not the amount of matches, it's the style. They bump soooo much more today than they did even 15 years ago. Jim Cornette once said "back in the day, guys weren't killing each other, but the people thought they were, now they are killing each other and nobody believes it".

If you've ever taken a bump in a ring, you know that doing it often in a match and having matches often can't be good.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

There was only ever one chance for a brand extension to work, for them to have kept WCW as a separate, viable, competitive company when they had the chance. Once that ship had sailed, anything WWE tried to do was in essence diluting their own talent pool.

Had the "Shane buys WCW" actually happened then WCW could have turned a corner in time. It could have been a more PG show or a more edgy/attitude style fed, allowing Vince to go back to his more kid friendly roots.

If they ever crossed paths, it would have been at Mania in "dream matches" rather than what we got, which was RAW stars on SD whenever the hell they like, SD stars whenever they were allowed and ECW whenever they could get in the building.