WWE mixing up PPVs hurt the programm

[DNA 2.0]

I don't have much to say. It's simple. They mixed up the PPVs, now we get wrestlers from both RAW and SD appear. They're long. The quality is low. And since the brand sells, WWE doesn't really try anymore to sell their PPVs. They stopped putting effort into lesser talent. Were are the tag divisions? Who was Nakamura's last title feud? Does Rollins still hold the IC title? I honestly don't know. AJ Styles always being in the middle of the card hurts him.

And it's not just the PPVs. It seems like they're thriving, bussiness wise, going to Australia and Saudi Arabia and even HBK came out of retirement and we're getting a match people were begging for years to happen (Brothers of Destruction vs DX), but I don't feel like this has been a good year for WWE writing wise.

It seems like they don't really have a plan, their only plan was to get Roman the Universal Championship. After that, now they're just doing things. It's like they're experimenting on everything in order to see what sticks, but without really putting effort.

Let's see where they're going.

[A11]

I said this when they announced this and people said it wouldn’t be true because now you had to earn or your way on the card or it was another opportunity for the audience to watch the better wrestlers. I said the same thing when they announced that they would be doing a Ppv each month for each brand and again people said it was a good thing and we were getting more. But here we are with oversaturated wrestlers competing in oversaturated feuds. 1 single brand ppv a month would have forced creative to book the lower card into something interesting

[OYDK]

No offense to OP, but it seems like every few months people are trying to pinpoint one reason as to why Raw and Smackdown are so bad but the fact of the matter is, apart from brief periods here and there, both shows have been relatively terrible for a very long time. I don't think the quality of WWE shows has anything to do with the PPV cycle. They're bad because the writing is bad. The writing has been bad for pretty much as long as I can remember now and changing up the way that PPV's run would not make a difference. How do I know this? Because the quality of Raw and SD has been the exact same whether WWE was running two-a-month PPV's or brand unified PPV's.

Honestly, I find the PPV's to be extremely enjoyable. You pretty much know that more often than not, you're going to get some really good matches and swerves. Obviously, not every PPV is a home-run but they're consistently entertaining, in my opinion at least.

[Jack-Hammer]

Overall, I've found the ppvs to be much more enjoyable, overall, over the past few months than either Raw or SmackDown when you factor everything in over the past few months. WWE has a lot of different things going on but the chief problem, for me, doesn't have as much to do with making all the ppvs dual branded, once again, it's that WWE's creative is so heavily restricted because of Vince McMahon. It was recently revealed that, allegedly, Vince basically dictates to WWE's creative team what he wants to have happen and then it's just up to creative to put in all the little nuts an bolts to make it all come together. Now, this isn't exactly a shocker or some widely held secret because it's been obvious for a long, long time that the primary job of WWE creative is to please Vince McMahon. It'd be kind of funny if it wasn't so sad and led to so many gut churningly bad TV moments, moments that Vince himself personally loves and all that does is reinforce the notion that Vince isn't in touch with the mind set of many a modern fan.

More often than not, I enjoy SD far more than Raw and generally have for a while now. Generally speaking, SmackDown has more cohesive storytelling, more reliable wrestling content and, aside from last night, has much less of a variety show feel to it than Raw does. Raw is the worst its been in years, probably the worst its been during this decade, due to a combination of things. A huge problem, in my opinion, is that the only program that's treated as though it matters on Raw is the Shield vs. the Dogs of War; you have the main event, mid-card and tag team champions all involved in one six man feud in which WWE is blowing through match combos featuring these men like a bulimic at a buffet before tossing it up 5 minutes later. There's no mid-card title picture to speak of unless it's Rollins taking on Ziggler or McIntyre, the main event title feud is uninteresting because of who the champion is, the foreknowledge that he's not remotely in any danger of dropping the title soon and that one of his challengers shows up once in a blue moon. Week after week, we've got Finn Balor out there against Jinder Mahal, WWE is trying to sell two, sometimes three, different ppvs within a 6 to 7 week span while jumbling everything together, the main event of one of those shows features a tag team match comprised of four men, three of whom are all north of 50 years of age and one that's extremely close, the other show is an all women's ppv that, when you get right down to it, nobody particularly cares about. Not that Evolution might not be a really fun show but it's not something that a lot of people worry about missing.

Another major issue, in my eyes, is that the roster is so loaded with talent but so little time is available to showcase much of it coupled with a gross misuse of available time and emphasis put on the wrong things. Instead of wasting time with nonsense like multiple 20 minute promos each week, dancing or pretending that Mixed Match Challenge means anything. Again, though, it all comes back to the writing and the writers have to cater the show to Vince McMahon because Vince genuinely believes that he feels he knows what we should or shouldn't like better than we do.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

No offense to OP, but it seems like every few months people are trying to pinpoint one reason as to why Raw and Smackdown are so bad but the fact of the matter is, apart from brief periods here and there, both shows have been relatively terrible for a very long time. I don't think the quality of WWE shows has anything to do with the PPV cycle. They're bad because the writing is bad. The writing has been bad for pretty much as long as I can remember now and changing up the way that PPV's run would not make a difference. How do I know this? Because the quality of Raw and SD has been the exact same whether WWE was running two-a-month PPV's or brand unified PPV's.

I have to agree with this. Simply put, WWE sucks and has sucked for a long time. Sure it can be great from time to time, but outside of the first six months of Smackdown during the second brand split in 2016, the product hasn't been consistently good since I started watching in 2006.

And honestly the product won't get better until Vince isn't running things. Don't get me wrong; I respect Vince. He's a tremendous businessman and possibly the greatest heel character of all time and, for better or worse, responsible for what pro wrestling is today. However with all that said, he doesn't have it anymore when it comes to creative. As OYDK said, people try to blame other things. Cena, Lesnar holding the title, 3 hour Raws, etc. Well Raw isn't better with Reigns as face of the company, Raw isn't better with the title around, and Raw wasn't better when it was only 2 hours. Until Vince steps down (and that could be a while), WWE won't get better.

[Ollie]

I agree with the Vince point being made here, but I would still like split PPVs on occasion. I never see the fun undercarders anymore, because there's no time for them when you bring both rosters together, and I don't have the time or the patience to watch Raw/SD on the regular.

Hell lads, sometimes I do want an R-Truth match.