The Better Show

When WWE announced that they would be bringing back the brand split a few months ago, I was not excited about it. I am still not thrilled that Raw and SmackDown are being treated as separate brands, but I still tune in each and every week to see what happens on both shows. So which one do I think has been better? Allow me to explain.

Based on the rules and results of the WWE draft, it appeared that Raw had the better of the two rosters. They have talented guys like Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Kevin Owens, and they have arguably the two best women wrestlers in the company in Charlotte and Sasha Banks. SmackDown has stars like Dean Ambrose, A.J. Styles, John Cena, and Becky Lynch, but the crop of talent on the blue brand is not as deep as it is on Raw as the red brand also features guys like Sheamus, Sami Zayn, Cesaro, the New Day, the Club, and the entire cruiserweight division. With a talent pool so deep, you would think that Raw would be able to put on a quality three-hour television program. Unfortunately that has not always been the case.

Despite getting off to a hot start by immediately establishing Finn Balor as a star on the main roster, there have been many times where Raw has fallen flat. The “Old Day” segment was extremely hard to watch and the rivalry between Titus O’Neil and Darren Young has been bland since the very start. That is not to say it has all been bad as Kevin Owens winning the Universal Championship was one of the best endings to an episode of Raw I have ever watched. Unfortunately the great moments and matches aren’t enough to overcome the laughably bad segments that Raw sometimes has which results in the show being just good.

SmackDown on the other hand has looked like the premier show that many people thought Raw would be. Despite having less airtime and talent, the blue brand is thriving. Segments on the show have a purpose and are usually very entertaining, matches are almost always good, and the creative team seems to know how to craft storylines that get the most out of the wrestlers on the roster. For example, the segment involving John Cena, A.J. Styles, and Dean Ambrose was gold, and the story of Heath Slater has been a major highlight of the blue brand. It might be the two-hour constraint compared to Raw’s three hours, but SmackDown makes the most of its time and wastes very little television with filler.

In conclusion, I believe that SmackDown has been the better show. While I feel that Raw programming has dragged at certain points, the programming on SmackDown seems concise and is usually always entertaining. Maybe Raw will get better once the cruiserweight division takes shape and steals some airtime away from the filler that really does not serve a purpose. I really do not want to see any more “Old Day” segments on Raw anymore. That was just painful to watch…