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.

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#5 The NXT pipeline slows down

The NXT machine may slow down with fewer main roster spots available.

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.

#4 Title unification

The era of the separate world, women's, and tag team champions may come to an end

For as long as there are two separate main roster brands, it makes sense for there to be two separate sets of titles for talents to pursue.

Each brand has its own top prize between the WWE and Universal titles, while the Intercontinental and United States Championships offer next tier down prizes for each roster to pursue. Separate women’s and tag team titles further make each brand feel more or less equal in terms of opportunities to capture gold.

With two rosters, the volume of titles would quickly become overwhelming, not to mention confusing when, for example, the only thing to distinguish the women’s titles is which brand they fall on.

At a minimum, we could expect the women’s and men’s tag team titles to be unified. Additionally, unless the Universal Championship is going to remain more pointedly in the hands of part-timers like Brock Lesnar, it would make a good bit of sense to bring the world titles together, too, to leave a single, unambiguous top title for talents to pursue.

#3 FOX features big stars

Without a brand split, FOX would likely feature the biggest stars WWE can muster on SmackDown

One of the dangers of WWE not featuring separate rosters for Raw and SmackDown is that, historically, there’s a tendency for SmackDown to devolve into the B-show.

It’s a fair enough thing to happen, given that all of the top stars can’t be expected to work both shows every week (on top of PPVs), and because Raw has traditionally been viewed as the company’s flagship, most watched show.

This fall will see SmackDown move from the USA Network to FOX, in the first time a major network of this magnitude has aired WWE programming on a weekly basis.

It does not make sense under this context that SmackDown would be a secondary consideration. Instead, if anything, it would make sense for the blue show to have the bigger stars featured.

Some have suggested that SmackDown’s move to FOX may be at the heart of the dissolving brand split so that both shows can benefit from WWE’s biggest names.

It’s unclear if that’s true, but having one, unified roster would certainly afford WWE the most liberties and opportunities to book its biggest names on either show as it sees fit.

#2 Seth Rollins vs. Daniel Bryan

A lot of dream matches we haven't seen in WWE, or haven't seen for a long time, could take shape without a division between rosters

One of the results of a split roster is that certain stars who might make for natural rivals don’t cross paths.

This tends to be a reason why more casual fans balk at divvying up locker rooms by separate brands, as we needlessly miss out on some enticing pairings.

On the flip side, though, this arrangement allows WWE to build its own dream matches in a way that it used to take separate companies altogether to do.

Indeed, part of the fun of the old days of WCW was to imagine dream matches between WCW’s Sting and WWE’s Undertaker, or WWE’s D-generation X and WCW’s New World Order.

More than facilitating fantasy booking, WWE is banking big programs by keeping talents apart with the knowledge they can profit from bringing them together down the road.

The last time Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins were on the same show was during the original Shield run when Rollins was by no means on Bryan’s level.

Having them on the same roster would invite these two incredibly talented stars who are each incredibly over with the hardcore fan base to finally collide on near equal footing, on the WWE stage.

We could expect the matches to be classics and to feel fresh after brand division and Bryan’s temporary retirement kept them apart.

#1 Roster Cuts

WWE may simply have no room for lesser used guys like No Way Jose in a unified roster.

Just as the NXT pipeline, and perhaps the NXT roster, on the whole, may dwindle if there aren’t two main roster brands to ultimately move up to, the existing main roster may face some trimming if there’s just one big roster.

Top stars like Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch will presumably be just fine and remain on top regardless of the brand situation. Stars like Asuka and Baron Corbin may see their stock drop slightly to more middle of the pack roles.

Underused talents like Shinsuke Nakamura and Rusev could see their stock sink even lower. The talents in truest danger of all, however, are ones like No Way Jose and Curt Hawkins who struggle to garner TV time under the current circumstances and may disappear altogether with twice the stars for WWE to feature on each show.

WWE will surely keep some less known stars around to have reserves in the event of others getting injured, or because they have long term potential or can fill specific roles.

However, things will be getting less sure-footed for those talents management feels already got their show, or who are already on the cusp of the chopping block when roster cuts come.