All PPVs Returning to Multi-Brand Format

[Enigma 0]

Today, World Wrestling Entertainment issued a press release saying that starting with Backlash 2007 in Atlanta, GA, all WWE PPVS will cease to be brand-exclusive and will return to their previous format of featuring all brands.

 

When the brand extension started in April 2002, all WWE PPVs aired in the United States were multi-brand. PPVs that were exclusive to the United Kingdom, Rebellion 2002 and Insurexxion 2002 and 2003, were Raw-only shows. PPVs in the United States became brand-exclusive in June 2003 with Bad Blood featuring only superstars from Raw. WWE used the brand-exclusive format to add more PPVs to the schedule. Great American Bash was added in June 2004 and became a Smackdown PPV. In 2005, it switched places with Vengeance and began airing in July. New Year's Revolution in January and Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday in October/November of each year were added to Raw's PPV lineup.

 

With the addition of Extreme Championship Wrestling as WWE's third brand, ECW One Night Stand took the spot Bad Blood usually held starting in June 2005. When the brand was relaunched full-time in June 2006, December to Dismember was added as an ECW-only PPV.

 

After WrestleMania 23, all PPVs will feature superstars from Raw, Smackdown, and ECW. Speculation had been increasing about the end of brand-only PPVs when Smackdown's Undertaker & Batista and ECW's Rob Van Dam & Bobby Lashley were advertised for Backlash, traditionally a Raw-only show.

 

More fuel was added to the fire when a local advertisement for the Great American Bash, a Smackdown-only PPV, was put on the Internet which featured a picture of Raw's John Cena with Smackdown's King Booker and Batista. Also on the black & white ad were the logos of Raw, Smackdown, & ECW with the "Smackdown Presents" slogan nowhere to be found.

 

ECW One Night Stand, whose original concept was intended to be an ECW reunion show, will be treated as any other WWE PPV now and will feature matches from Raw and Smackdown. As revealed earlier, WWE cancelled its booking of the show's yearly home of the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City and relocated it to Jacksonville, FL.

 

All non-WM PPVs will remain at their current $39.95 price point.

 

Here is a link to the press release: http://www.pwtorch.com/artman/publish/article_19722.shtml

 

EDIT: It is now being speculated that the two former ECW PPVs will either now be regarded as "WWE One Night Stand" & "WWE December to Dismember" or be renamed entirely.

 

WWE's remaining PPV schedule shapes up like this:

 

-- WWE WrestleMania 23 -- April 1, 2007 (Detroit, MI @ Ford Field)

-- WWE Backlash 2007 -- April 29, 2007 (Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena)

-- WWE Judgment Day 2007 -- May 20, 2007 (St. Louis, MO @ Scottrade Center)

-- WWE One Night Stand 2007 -- June 3, 2007 (Jacksonville, FL @ Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena)

-- WWE Vengeance 2007 -- June 24, 2007 (Houston, TX @ Toyota Center)

-- WWE Great American Bash 2007 -- July 22, 2007 (San Jose, CA @ HP Pavilion)

-- WWE SummerSlam 2007 -- August 26, 2007 (East Rutherford, NJ @ Continental Airlines Arena)

-- WWE Unforgiven 2007 -- September 16, 2007 (Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum)

-- WWE No Mercy 2007 -- October 7, 2007 (Rosemont, IL @ Allstate Arena)

-- WWE Cyber Sunday 2007 -- October 28, 2007 (Washington, DC @ Verizon Center)

-- WWE Survivor Series 2007 -- November 18, 2007 (Miami, FL @ American Airlines Arena)

-- WWE December to Dismember 2007 -- December 2, 2007 (Charlotte, NC @ Cricket Arena)

-- WWE Armageddon 2007 -- December 16, 2007 (Pittsburgh, PA @ Mellon Arena)

[MrRant 0]

Hopefully the brand split will be ending soon after...

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Hopefully the brand split will be ending soon after...

 

That would be a terrible idea.

[SamoaRowe 0]

Yeah, I don't see why everyone is so desperate for the brand split to end. If that happened, things would be just like they were before, remember how awful the period after the invasion and before the initial split in 2002 was? It was hell, you never knew when you'd see the midcarders you enjoyed, and the main eventers were globbing up time on Raw and Smackdown each week.

 

I promise that if the brand split ended, within months they would burn through all the pros of ending it, and they'd be in a real shitty situation. I haven't even gotten into how they would manage merging the upper card stars from all three shows onto on show each week. If every Raw and Smackdown needed to make justifiable room for Undertaker, Edge, Cena, Orton, RVD, Lashley, Booker, Kane, Kennedy, Michaels, the McMahons, Benoit, etc, then at least some of them are losing their pushes.

 

If there ever was a time to end the roster split, it has long passed. Right now it needs to stay.

[Mecca 0]

Hopefully the brand split will be ending soon after...

 

So you'd like to see 30 people get fired.......then see Triple H, HBK, Batista, Cena and a few others dominant the air time for every show huh?

 

I'm sorry I can't take 5 hours of Triple H every week.

[SamoaRowe 0]

I'm also not happy about all the ppvs being multi brand in the first place. The last few months of this in 2003 were really bad. A lot of high profile talent had to settle for roles on ppvs that were beneath them and most midcarders rarely got a shot. As it is, I don't expect to see talent like London and Kendrick on too many ppvs in the future, seeing as they were only ever used on Smackdown only ppvs in the first place.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Theres no point in having ECW One Night Stand if its not an ECW only show..Im sorry. Theres like 3 PPVs in a short stretch between GAB,ONS and whatever the PPV in july is. No point in having the ECW December PPV either because you have Survivor Series, Armageddon, D2D and NYR all within like a 6 or 7 week period . The worst part is with the PPVs being so close, there wont be any time to buildup to the PPVs at all..they could pull it off with brand specific shows..

 

Im all for ending the brand split but keeping the ECW show seperate. Whatever guys that would get bumped from RAW/SD because of the brands not being split could go to ECW for all I care..maybe they could expand it to 2 hours or something. Face it though, there really isn't that much good talent that wouldn't get to be used on at least one show (RAW or SD) each week..

[SamoaRowe 0]

Yeah, I hadn't even stopped to think about how this change messes up their overload of ppvs. Not only are the ECW shows now meaningless, but so is having Cyber Sunday and No Mercy in the same month.

[Enigma 0]

I've thought about this and I came up with an idea that I think would work.

 

Those who say nay to the brand extension ending cite the fact that the main eventers would be all over every show and they are absolutely right. 5 hours of Triple H, Batista, Lashley, John Cena, etc. would get tired quick.

 

I propose ending the brand split but keeping the main eventers and certain mid-carders specific to each show. You can let everyone mid-card down scatter around but keep the main eventers to one show. Hype it up as the general managers of the show signing their top guys to "exclusivity contracts" like how Stephanie got Brock Lesnar to defend the WWE Title exclusively on Smackdown in 2002.

 

I like the idea, personally. It would let the mid-carders and low-carders get tons more experience in front of a camera and it would keep the top guys from oversaturating television.

 

I'd also put an end to exclusive titles except for the world titles. The U.S. Title could be merged into the I-C Title and the Smackdown tag titles could be merged into the Raw tag titles since the Raw ones have the lineage behind them.

 

You could also play around with the higher mid-carders and give someone a rub by dubbing them exclusive to one show to make them seem like a big deal as needed.

 

Umaga would have been great for that scenario. Have him run rampant through Raw, Smackdown, and ECW and then Coach makes the big exclusive deal to keep Umaga on Raw only. It's just an example of how I'd work it.

 

WWE has proven they aren't capable to execute the brand extension the way it could have been, so I think it's necessary to disable some components of it.

[razazteca 0]

Hopefully the brand split will be ending soon after...

 

So you'd like to see 30 people get fired.......then see Triple H, HBK, Batista, Cena and a few others dominant the air time for every show huh?

 

I'm sorry I can't take 5 hours of Triple H every week.

I'm sorry but I can't take 3 hours of WWE programming pushing second rate "stars" who are clearly not ready for prime time.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Well, you can kiss those twenty minute Benoit/Finlay or Benoit/Regal matches goodbye.

[razazteca 0]

they all should retire...

[Enigma 0]

It is now being speculated that the two former ECW PPVs will either now be regarded as "WWE One Night Stand" & "WWE December to Dismember" or be renamed entirely.

[LJSexay 0]

this is real bad. Did you guys see the fucking schedule? There is no decrease in PPVs - at all. This just means the split is more of a joke than ever before, and the great run of SD PPVs is like.. over. PPVs with all three brands 2 - 3 weeks apart?? That's asking for the lowest buyrates ever.

 

I don't want all-brand PPVs that aren't the big four, as it really fucks shit up, let alone lessens the value of the cross-brands like Wrestlemania. bah.

[Enigma 0]

They're determined to put a dent into UFC's PPV market.

[Mecca 0]

this is real bad. Did you guys see the fucking schedule? There is no decrease in PPVs - at all. This just means the split is more of a joke than ever before, and the great run of SD PPVs is like.. over. PPVs with all three brands 2 - 3 weeks apart?? That's asking for the lowest buyrates ever.

 

I don't want all-brand PPVs that aren't the big four, as it really fucks shit up, let alone lessens the value of the cross-brands like Wrestlemania. bah.

 

Casual Joe that buys WWE PPV is more likely to buy ones with all the "stars" on it than one that isn't. They'll probably actually turn a greater profit because of this, a ton of WWE fans are rubes and don't give a fuck about London or Kendrick or any midcard guys they'd be fine with a whole 2 hour show of the 5 maineventers and think it was great.

[bob_barron 0]

The good thing is that a lot of the PPVs won't have so much filler anymore.

 

The bad thing is that no one will get a chance to shine on PPVs

[LJSexay 0]

it means less guys get PPV paydays and those top stars get many many more - potentially causing a rift between the lowcard and uppercard guys.

 

So I hate this news, but will have no choice but to swallow it.

[cbacon 0]

Or you could, you know, not buy any PPVs

[Scroby 0]

If this means that the WWE will go back to having 1 PPV a month, in the future, I'm down with having the PPV's being multi-brand.

[slimm44 0]

Or you could, you know, not buy any PPVs

 

 

I don't anymore. For $60 a year, I can watch all wrestling events on Paltalk

 

The only positive is that we get inter-brand matches. But yeah, if they are going to change the format, they should take away a few of the PPV's.

[Scroby 0]

this is real bad. Did you guys see the fucking schedule? There is no decrease in PPVs - at all. This just means the split is more of a joke than ever before, and the great run of SD PPVs is like.. over. PPVs with all three brands 2 - 3 weeks apart?? That's asking for the lowest buyrates ever.

I'm thinking 2008, the WWE will be back to the one ppv a month schdule as it would make the WWE look really bad if they cancelled a whole bunch of PPV's at already booked arenas.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

They would have to go back to the 12 events per year, since all those extra ones added the last few years to add balance to Raw/SD shows wouldn't be needed anymore.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

They adjusted the model so that they get revenue going with the 16 PPV format. Going back to 12 would see a decrease in revenue, which is bad in the eyes of investors and so forth.

[cbacon 0]

I still don't get how wrestling fans have money for these PPVs in the first place. Given their demographic.

[razazteca 0]

They live in Europe and get it for free on Skybox? Oh and I think its time to unify the tag team belts so I can see if London & Spanky live up to the hype if anything they would be the best team that can use the rub from beating HBK & Cena.

[Hasbeen1 0]

Keep the split, have one World champ and one duo as World tag champs. Defend on Raw and Smackdown, and on ECW have title defenses with "ECW rules (no rules)." IC title, US title and ECW title, plus tag titles with each of those names could be specific to each brand.

[razazteca 0]

HHH should stay on one brand and Undertaker should stay on one brand the only difference is that the revolving door of jobbers would change every couple of months. The main eventers should be static while the midcard would be dynamic going back and forth between Raw & Smackdown fighting for their chance to job to the main eventer at the end of the month. For instance Ken Kennedy, Kennedy would make a surprise appearance on Raw to change up the boring main event of Superman Cena vs the world. Orton can go to Smackdown to lose to Undertaker again too. The tag division which is nonexistent on Raw could have Cade & Murdoch use their smash-mouth style to kill whatever gimmick team from Smackdown. They can also banish, I mean trade, Chris Masters and Great Khali to Smackdown to fight over the US Championship or something. Besides thats were all the bad gimmicks belong right afterall Smackdown already has the limey leprechaun, darth boogerman, and the Last King of Scotland, among other childish gimmicks....send them Jim Duggan, Eugene, Highlanders, Cryme Tyme too.

[Ravenbomb 0]

Given that the brand split is still going, maybe they don't need to necessarily cut back down to 12, just not have so many. Like, have the big 5 (Rumble, WM, Survivor Series, Summerslam, and I'm blanking on what the other one is) in addition to the monthly shows.

[Superfly Snuka 0]

Kill ECW (as having three brands makes no sense) and just have the champions go back and forth between shows. Unify the belts (all of them) except the US and Intercontinental, which can be the top "brand-specific" belt.