Shane McMahon’s WWE return and match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32 for the control of RAW got a lot of fans talking about a potential brand split happening again.
Fans aren’t the only ones talking about a brand split as there have been rumblings within WWE for several weeks now, even before Shane returned, according to PWInsider. No word yet on exactly what is being discussed or how close they might be to actually executing the idea but there has been at least talk of doing some kind of split with RAW and SmackDown.
It will be very interesting to see if WWE could pull off a brand split with the way business is today. It doesn’t sound like NXT would be involved but that wasn’t stated in the report. There’s also no word on if the stipulation for Hell In a Cell at WrestleMania would tie into the split but it seems like that would be the easiest way to get there.
source: PWInsider Elite
Mixed feelings on this. On one hand, might be good for talents who are rarely seen. The first brand extension gave the crusierweights and others a chance to shine who’d otherwise be buried if ever seen on RAW or SD without the brand split while also giving talents like HHH and Taker, who were full-time back then a little rest period of sorts in the sense that they were only working one brand’s shows (HHH was exclusive to RAW for the most part as he did spend some time on SD. Taker was exclusive to RAW for a while, then moved to SD and stayed there making it his show essentially). On the other hand, not only would be split bring in more titles (like it did in the previous split) at a point where even the current ones are more or less meaningless, but the split “might” also lead to a Shane McMahon win unless they find some other way to get the split going, provided that is WWE’s direction.
