Vince McMahon had his fourth-quarter earnings call yesterday where he touted a record number of subscribers to the WWE Network and praised WWE’s brand extension. According to WrestlingInc.com, Vince said he believes the brand extension is working “extremely well.” McMahon said they are seeing crossover with RAW and SmackDown viewers but were also introducing new viewers to SmackDown, which is something that was not happening before the split.
But the biggest dop of the call came when Vince teased a Roman Reigns move to SmackDown. Vince was speaking about how the brand split will allow for opportunities to keep talents fresh as they go from brand to brand, saying it’s hard to create new stars with just one show but the brand split allows other talents to get a chance to climb the ladder of success. He then used Roman Reigns potentially jumping to SmackDown as an example.
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That’s a pretty specific example. Considering Roman was used as the number 30 entrant into this year’s Royal Rumble just to assure Randy Orton would get a huge babyface pop when he won, WWE is well aware of how stale Roman’s character has become to a large portion of the WWE universe.
With the brand split getting close to a year old, they have done a great job of keeping the two rosters separated. No doubt, the first big name “trade” that happens will make waves for whichever superstars swap brands.
While this tease is exciting news for Roman fans, it’s also possible that WWE creative could settle for a trade to SmackDown instead of working more on tweaking the portions of his character that the Roman haters have grown weary of. It could also squash that Heel turn we’ve all been dreaming of.
Many would argue that Smackdown has been the better show since last year’s split and, by default, those superstars get more love for their efforts. Would a simple switch to Tuesday nights fix what has been ailing Roman or does he need a complete overhaul?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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