What if WWE ends the brand split?
The brand split is a concept designed to get the most out of a large WWE roster. It features two separate rosters to work live events and television shows.
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The split also affords, at least in theory, double the opportunities to work in featured roles for the two separate primetime TV shows, and two separate sets of titles for Superstars to pursue.
This brand split got going over the summer of 2016, as something of a sequel to the original brand split that kicked off in 2002 and withered away by degrees across the decade to follow. Might the new brand split come to a much quicker and more abrupt conclusion?
Some of the signs are there, including WWE doing away with single-branded PPVs last year. The division between brands has further eroded, particularly on the women’s side, in recent months. The institution of the Women’s Tag Team Champion as an explicitly cross-branded title seems like a further death knell for the current brand split.
There are certainly those fans and critics who are in favor of the brand split, particularly looking at the past year of WWE programming when Raw, despite its greater star power, struggled mightily, while the general consensus was that SmackDown stayed strong. This article considers what it would mean if WWE ended the brand split.
#5 The NXT pipeline slows down
WWE has built a very strong developmental program that not only sets up talent for the main roster but is very entertaining in its own right.
With two brands, there have been natural opportunities for a good eight to ten acts to get the call up to Raw or SmackDown each year, with a tradition of new talent debuting right after WrestleMania, and other stars showing up at selected times to bolster or diversify the ranks.
If WWE recombines its rosters, it will inevitably mean fewer opportunities for mid-card and lower talents to get TV time.
As such, we may well see fewer call ups from NXT so as to not overcrowd the roster. Consequently, there’s also a real chance that NXT itself might see fewer signings.
WWE would know that there are going to be fewer main roster spots for talents to move into, besides which top stars from outside WWE may be reticent to sign, knowing that they might get stuck in NXT (with a developmental paycheck) indefinitely if they do.