Why has WWE Spread its Talent So Thin?

[Guest Kamui]

Hmmm.....I must ask, why has WWE basically put most of their good talent on Smackdown and most of their shitty ones on RAW, as far as the mid-card is concerned? I mean, on Smackdown it's a lot easier to watch, say, John Cena than Jeff Hardy or the Cruiserweight Divison instead of....uh.....more HHH. It seems like Smackdown has an actual mid-card with great talent and RAW just has HHH and a huge drop-off after, know what I mean? Just something I was thinking about watching tonight's Smackdown.

 

-Duo

[Guest TheHulkster]

I wouldn't really say Smackdown has all the fields covered like you say. There is quite a bit of pointless filler on SD each week. The character development is lacking too. You can say the same for Raw, but in some cases, it's not as much of an issue on Raw as it is on SD. Random Shuffling is a big problem on SD. One week it'll be Edge Vs Angle, then Angle Vs Benoit, then a fatal 4-way with Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, and Edge, then Angle Vs Guerrero, then Angle Vs Benoit again. It wears itself pretty thin after a while. Sure, the wrestling is good, but after you've seen it so many times, the same exact spots, the same finishes, and the same people week in and week out, it gets harder to watch. Raw has it's fair share of flaws too (just as many or perhaps moreso than SD), but it seems it gets too much of a bum rap on here because HHH is the top star. Often times the pacing of the show and the production of Raw seem a little better than SD. The character development is better in some ways too IMO. SD has much better ringwork though.

[Guest razazteca]

one show is HHH interviews with the talent always being keep a few steps behind the Champ-uh. The other show is booked with a Bingo Ball Tumbler but has a big pay day every now and then for the lucky wrestler.

[Guest DragonflyKid]

They should give up on the split rosters, combine the two and cut the wrestlers with no upside. When both shows combine the star power will increase and be able to put out consistent shows thus ratings will go up. The star power and quality on Velocity and Heat will also improve and those shows can have improvements in their ratings and make more money. Instead of having HHH on RAW and Smackdown multiple times he can be on once and get some time on the B-shows whcih will be good all around.

[Guest TheArchiteck]

Hmmm, Raw has all the major star power I think.

It's the marks dream show. Hell, a lot of my favorites reside in Raw, which I why I look forward to it a lot of times. Smackdown does have some of my favorite too, but the circle of matches are being overdone.

[Guest Brian]

They're not oging to cut that many guys, so rather than should just stay with what they have and bring in some new guys and work the hype machine better. The writing on SmackDown has generally been better which has made it even more lopsided but with HHH on RAW, and more SE, Vince sees it as the better show.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

It is actually Smackdown that needs help in the midcard (not necessarily talent, just bodies). They have a ton of guys in the upper midcard/main event range, and next to nothing (Noble & Nunzio, De Mott, MFers) below that. That's why you see no-name jobbers on Velocity every week. They simply don't have enough guys. They need to bring up some OVW guys or something. This is why the matches on RAW are much fresher.

 

RAW has the opposite problem. A ton of midcarders that can't advance beyond that because of the glass ceiling. The only true main eventer is HHH. This is why RAW needed Steiner so badly, but someone like Kanyon is far more valuable to Smackdown.

[Guest evilhomer]

The number one problem is that Vince doesn't want to admit that the split has been a failure so they're hanging on to the storyline.

 

I think an additional problem is just the egos of the wrestlers. They could easily do away with the formal split but keep it there in an informal basis. The rosters could remain relatively like they are to avoid the problem of having both shows dominated by a few, while still allowing easier jumping from one show to the other when the situation warrants it. The problem with this is that inevitably, one show would be seen as the #1, every main eventer would want to go on the #1 show, thus reducing the #2 to a jobber show.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

I like the split. Things were far worse this time last year (well, almost. I mean post January 7th) when we had HHH dominating both shows instead of just one. If there was no split, I probably wouldn't be watching at all at this point.