INQUISITR.COM / Sports

WWE Brand Split: 30 Days In, Has It Failed Or Succeeded?

By Aric Mitchell
Published on: 07:03 PST, Aug 26, 2016

The WWE Brand Split that hit in July has had more than 30 days now to prove itself, and there is some back-and-forth debate about how it’s going.

Some, like the Inquisitr‘s own Aaron Sass, argued that it had failed after just a couple of weeks. Others, namely Vince McMahon, seem content to stick with it.

SummerSlam served as a litmus test for just how well the WWE Brand Split was being perceived, and after the two new world title matches taking a back seat to Randy Orton vs. Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns vs. Rusev (for the U.S. Championship, no less), it’s easy to see why there are criticisms.

The WWE Brand Split had a ton of momentum following the surprise victory of Dean Ambrose at Money in the Bank.

Was it possible the least favored guy would now be carrying the company on his shoulders? Following weeks of faltering ratings, answers were starting to take shape.

Everyone who argued that Ambrose deserved a shot and was being held back no longer had that excuse to go on, and their guy was failing.

Or so the detractors said.

Supporters of Ambrose as Champion point out that the company appeared to be doing everything it could to discredit Ambrose’s reign.

First, they moved him to Smackdown Live, which has long been seen as the company’s second-string show.

Secondly, they booked him in a feud against Dolph Ziggler, whom the company has actively buried since Survivor Series of 2014.

While it was clear that Ambrose would be getting the victory over Ziggler at SummerSlam, it was also that clarity that relegated the match to undercard fare.

Also harmful to the WWE Brand Split was the fact that the company decided to do the same thing essentially to the Seth Rollins-Finn Balor match for the newly minted WWE Universal Championship.

Just as an aside, the “Universal Championship” has been a target of criticism from wrestling journalists like Court Bauer and Mister Saint-Laurent, who routinely make fun of the name on the MLW Radio podcast.

MSL has even gone as far as joking that the next belt from WWE would be the “Intergalactic Championship.”

Fans didn’t help either.

At SummerSlam, the rowdy Brooklyn crowd engaged in chants of wanting a new belt. One caller in attendance at the event even joked to the LAW podcast, asking “what is up with the McDonalds Universal Title belt,” making fun of the red and gold belt (pictured above).

With the title already disrespected, the company chose to book the belt decider before the Reigns-Rusev U.S. title, same as with the Smackdown Live belt.

Essentially, the two biggest prizes on both major shows post WWE Brand Split have been devalued in favor of an undercard belt and a fight between two part-timers.

What’s worse, the guy who won the Universal Championship is out for six months with an injury he sustained during the match. This forces a scenario all too familiar to the company’s creative team — where a legitimate titleholder is forced to vacate without having the title taken from him in the ring.

It happened to Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins just when they were starting to get momentum. Complicating the issue even further, Brock Lesnar lost the title without getting pinned or physically beaten.

It has created a state of confusion surrounding the “rightful” champion on the Raw brand, and that’s a bit of confusion the upcoming Fatal Four-Way will fail to clarify.

But what do you think, readers?

Does a title’s prestige determine the prestige of the brand it’s on, and one month in, is it time for the WWE Brand Split to be scrapped? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via WWE]

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