Good and Bad: The Brand Split (Thus Far)

By Joseph Reds

Twitter/Instagram @WelpThatsAThing

Thus far the WWE Brand Split has been filled with ups and downs. I have to admit that I personally believe it has actually been a success so far. If you really look atof 2016 as whole in the WWE compared to 2015, there has been a lot of great improvement. This year we have seen records broken, we’ve seen more superstars utilized, we’ve seen an incredible Women’s Division, and we’ve seen a great set of World Champions.

So let’s break down the Bad first, living by the strategy of its always better to receive bad news first, because then the good news kind of softens the blow….I guess.

The WWE lost some great talents this year, and to be fair they were doing absolutely nothing with most of them. Alberto Del Rio asked for his release, allegedly doing so on good terms with the company. I’ve never been the biggest ADR Fan, but seeing as the company brought him in to drawn in the latino crowd, it’s not great that they didn’t do much with him and eventually let him walk. Paige, Del Rio’s girlfriend left soon later. Technically, Paige is still with the company but was suspended twice and is now recovering from injury. There has been nothing officially announced about her return yet. This had much controversy, which I really don’t feel like getting into at this time. Damien Sandow was released in one of the years biggest head scratchers. Here the company had someone who, literally, the whole crowd was behind and like a Diamond Cutter out of no where, he was released. Then you have Wade Barrett, who is now doing films and TV. Barrett was another crowd favorite and a sure-fire main eventer that the company just didn’t understand.

Finally, you have Cody Rhodes. A while ago I wrote an article about how Rhodes, Barrett and Sandow could help save TNA. I talked about how stale the product had become and that these three under utilized talents could bring it back from the dead. A reader expressed a contrary opinion, that is entirely his prerogative. He told me that, in fact Rhodes and Barrett were much worse than the likes of Lashley and the Hardys. I totally understand where that reader was coming from. There are a few TNA Lifers. They’re akin to people who exclusively by Nintendo Systems into their 30s. TNA is a joke. I wish it wasn’t, I remember when it was great. It no longer is. The Broken Hardys angle is by far one of the most embarrassing things I have ever seen and Lashley has never been a great wrestler.

That Article was many months ago, there has been a lot of time between now and then. Enough time to fairly compare the Rhodes or TNA argument. Rhodes wins, and by proxy, so do I. Rhodes has proved that you don’t actually need the WWE to succeed. He has dominated as wrestling legend everywhere he has been since leaving. Putting on one great match after another for ROH, PWG, Evolve, WCPW and even TNA; he has shown that he was and is the real deal. In his recent heel turn he ended up joining The Bullet Club. Honestly that vignette gave me chills.

Just watch it, if you haven’t….if you have, watch it again: https://twitter.com/njpwglobal/status/807539003557748736

Chills. Right?

The reason that these departures hurt the brand split so much, is because most of these people are wrestlers fans hoped to see in more advanced roles. How great could a heel stable have been if Barrett, Sandow and Rhodes dropped their gimmicks? How great could Del Rio have been heading up Smackdown as one of the top heels? Or even Paige in a more open Women’s Division? We’ll never know and that hurts the Split.

Quite a few other bad things have happened: namely the Tag Team Division.

Obviously the New Day has been great, in their antics and breaking the record of consecutive days holding the tag titles, they have shown us how a team that started as nothing can become one of the hottest and most successful acts of all time. But what of the rest of the division? Has anyone truly stood out?

Enzo and Big Cass have been overshadowed by the New Day’s run as champs, now they’re stuck in a rut. They have been trapped in a story line where Enzo is trying to bang Lana, Rusev’s wife. Rusev is pissed about this and that somehow makes him the bad guy. It’s a mess and no one likes it.

Gallows and Anderson have been a disgrace. The Club should be bruisers, wrecking everyone in their path, but more often than not they are an awkward comedy act. The Vaudevillains are jobbers, Breezango are hilarious but also jobbers, The Usos are kind of gaining steam in their heel turn….kind of.

There is one team of note, but we’ll get to them a little bit later, so don’t start screaming at your computers just yet.

Then there are the Cruiserweights. This is baffling. The Cruiserweight Classic was great, bringing the division and an updated title back were great, not making any relevant story lines and having virtually one heel in Brian Kendrick was not great. Now, there is the possibility that adding a heel Neville can rejuvenate the division properly, but its way too early to tell.

Finally, devaluing the U.S. Championship. Look at all that work that John Cena did gone to waste. Hate Cena all you want, he made that title relevant. Now its a joke again. Roman Reigns has defended it like twice in the last 8 months…ok that was a tad hyperbolic, but you get my point.

Now lets look at the good things that happened since the Brand Split:

First off, look at the World Champions we’ve had.

Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles.

Yes, the first two are technically “Universal Champions” but does anyone really like that name?

This is much different from the WWE that we’ve been accustomed to. Normally when we don’t want someone as champ, then that’s literally the only person we get as champ. Now we keep getting people we want to hold the title(s). That makes us happy, not because they are good guys or bad guys, but because we know they are people who deserve the spotlight.

Then there’s the Miz, has anyone exploded more as a performer since the brand split than him? Epic promos week after week. Great matches at each PPV. The Miz has made just about everyone admit that they were wrong about him. That’s something very hard to do in the wrestling industry. Especially when you have “Smart Internet Fans” aka fucking morons like me who can look at everything with the clarity that hindsight brings instead of making those decisions in the present tense.

Now look at Sheamus and Cesaro, an odd angle started out with a best of seven series that seemed to drag on, they finally started going to an intriguing match and it gets cut short. At this point that seems like a bad thing. Then Mick Foley makes them a tag team, that seems even worse. Then slowly but surely they start having an immense amount of chemistry. They dethrone the Champs and now make a whole lot of sense. This is proof that if you give the WWE time they can surprise you.

The Women’s division has also been amazing. Yes, there is one on Raw and one on Smackdown, but both have been good. Ok, the Raw one has pretty much just been Sasha Banks and Charlotte, but we’re finally seeing Bayley get in the mix and Sasha is going to square off against Nia Jax so that’s pretty cool. It’s the Smackdown Women who have truly impressed. We all know how great Sasha Banks and Charlotte are, but seeing Becky Lynch anchor the entire Smackdown side and do it convincingly has been wonderful. Now you have Alexa Bliss stepping up and being more than we first expected, Carmella has shown her ability in her knew heel persona. The Smackdown Women are swinging for the fences and its been great.

It is almost a mutual feeling among wrestling fans that all of Smackdown episodes have been a hit week in and week out. You have the 2016 WWE MVP in AJ Styles, you have the 2016 Most Improved Wrestler in the Miz, you have a (in my opinion) superior Women’s Division, you have Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler who have shown us that they cannot be lost in the shuffle any longer, the Wyatt Family have been intriguing again, and then you have John Cena.

WAIT.

JUST HOLD ON.

Yes, I am saying that John Cena has been quite good for the WWE since the Brand Split. He’s only been around a limited amount of time, but more importantly he has been putting over almost anyone he has gone against. This is honestly a John Cena that I’d like to see more of. Imagine if Cena acted like Chris Jericho, leave for a while, come back, put over a talent and then leave again so more people have time in the sun. If Cena does that for the next 4-5 years, can you honestly deny him as one of the greats any longer? Hulk Hogan refused to ever put over talent, even when he was old and could barely move, that’s one of the reasons that his legacy has been desecrated so much over the years, but what if Cena opts to be the opposite? What if he chooses, “Hey, I’ve had my time, now its someone else’s turn.” Yes he’s buried new talent in the past, but as far as this year goes, this seems to be a complete 180 in how he conducts business, and that is a good thing.

All in all we have seen a vast improvement in how the WWE operates. This year may have had some bad things happen, but I believe those have been far surpassed by the good things.

So what do you think? have I missed anything Good or Bad that has happened in the WWE since the Brand Split? let us know in the comments below. Also hit me up on Twitter/Instagram @WelpThatsAThing and tell me what a douche I am for hating TNA when it clearly sucks.