Oh, I agree with that completely. So why make a bad situation worse by having even more guys float around with nothing to do? Merging the titles is certainly going to make that problem worse rather than remedy it. Then you'd basically be taking all the guys who actually have stuff to do right now, which isn't all that many, and cutting them in half. That's as counter productive as it gets.
No matter how you look at it, unifying the titles or not, guys will still be floating around doing nothing. The main issues with some ppl not being used is more of a booking and creative problem. So, IMO ending the brand extention would have no major effect on guys not being used. Sure, guys would be released that are doing nothing, but it beats them being on the roster with no use at all. Being counterproductive to me means keeping a irrelevant draft going that always winds up making SD look horrible. At least unifying the belts would have one champion for each particular belt, instead of two like now(except for the tag titles). Not to mention RAW features SD guys anyway, so what's the reasoning for keeping the shows seperate? If the point is to make wrestlers exclusive to shows, then doing the Supershows only detracts from that idea. Regardless, what ever your view on this is, WWE has screwed up the brand extention royally and now it doesn't serve any relevant purpose.
It's clearly gotten worse over the last couple of years, though. Raw was always the A show, but it wasn't always this obvious. They put a lot more stars on SmackDown, put a lot more effort into the storylines, and had SmackDown matches main event pay-per-views on much more regular of a basis. They also had SmackDown rebounds on Raw instead of just the other way around, and they even had brand-specific pay-per-views for a while. Merging the titles would just help us to continue going in this direction where SmackDown matters less and less by the month, instead of going in the opposite direction, which is where I would be trying to go if I were in charge.
I do agree it has gotten progressively worse over the past 5 years or so. The only real time SD looked as great as RAW IMO was around 2003. They had Heyman writing awesome storylines for SD with him as the GM. And the wrestling then was far superior to RAW(which has for the most part been the saving grace of SD). And at least back then they wisely used trades to explain guys jumping shows, instead of the current disregard for the basic premise of the brand extention. To me, that is the main reason even having this brand extention is a pointless exercise. If WWE doesn't treat RAW and SD like two seperate, but equal shows, then the reasoning behind it makes no logical sense. The way it stands now, RAW is a Supershow and SD is still the B show. If the negatives way outweigh the positives, what purpose does that serve?
They have two world titles, two midcard titles, a tag team title and a divas title. That's really not that many, and it's certainly not a ridiculous number like you're trying to make it seem. They had nine titles as of about three years ago, and they made that work then, so obviously six isn't too many. I mean, what do you want, four titles across two brands? Who exactly does that benefit?
Ok, I let this go in the Cena turning heel thread, so I will address this now. When I said 95% of the crowd booes Cena or there are 20 titles in WWE, I'm exaggerating sarcastically to make a point. Too bad typing words here doesn't allow sarcasm to pentrate the sound barrier. Even though I did exaggerate the number of titles, the point remains the same. If you have two world titles, two mid card titles and two divas championships, how prestigious do those belts look? Cause to me, having two of each says either guy/diva can claim to be the best, even though the WHC and US Titles are viewed as inferior to the WWE counterpart titles. From the titles looking prestigious standpoint, IMO it craps on the credibility of those titles to have two guys laying claim to essentially the same belt.
Besides, having unified champions wouldn't be all bad. It appears most here assume that fact, even though WWE survived for years before the brand extention without multiple titles. And you know what that did? It forced guys to step up and prove themselves to become champion, thus making those belts all the more prestigious and credible. I'm not saying it has to happen, but if it does, I think it will have more benefits than most realize.