The WWE brand split is not far away. July 19th is fast approaching and every few days seems to bring about more information and rumours. Something things we do know are that there is going to be a draft, each brand is likely to have its own champion and there will be two separate general managers.
They won’t be referred to as General Managers, but more Chief Operating Officers. Michael Cole revealed this during Monday Night Raw and it’s rather interesting. Triple H is the Chief Operating Officer in the WWE but he hasn’t been seen for months.
Perhaps the term General Manager is too played out in the WWE?
Cole also referred to the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Dean Ambrose as just the WWE Champion. During previous brand splits, there had been two champions, one WWE World Heavyweight Champion and one WWE Champion.
The WWE has also changed Dean Ambrose’s status on their website to the WWE Champion.
Two champions for each brand has been rumoured from the start and it looks like this is going to be a certain part of the brand split.
Two champions
With a separate champion for each brand, it opens up an interesting prospect for which brand doesn’t draft the champion, which is likely to be Dean Ambrose.
If Ambrose stays on RAW, SmackDown is going to need a champion. One idea is a tournament, starting on the episode following the first live SmackDown, where a number of superstars compete.
It could go on for a number of weeks, with people like John Cena and AJ Styles meeting in the final match-up to figure out who is SmackDown’s champion.
Potential new sets for each show?
One thing that made the previous brand split stand out was the individual sets for each show. Not many fans will forget the iconic SmackDown fist or the cut up look of the Monday Night Raw stage.
Which each show now having their own pay-per-view and WWE Network events, it may be that the WWE is considering going out on the individualism of each show.
They’ve already made the point of having individual and unique rosters, why not spruce things up on the production side.