5 reasons why Raw is better than SmackDown Live

Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live have been going head to head with one another ever since the brand extension back in the summer of 2016, and for the most part, it’s been a relatively even battle. Sure, they’ve both had great moments, but nobody has been able to pull head and shoulders clear of the other.

Until now. Over the course of the last few months, the red brand has consistently been a much more polished product than the blue brand. It’s been quite the turnaround when you consider where both shows were around this time last year, but nonetheless, it’s happened.

Obviously, not everyone is going to agree with this and it’s like not like we’re suggesting SD Live is awful or anything like that, although that’s what some readers will choose to believe.

With that being said, here are five reasons Raw is better than SmackDown Live (right now).

#5 Commentary Team

While Corey Graves may be a prominent member of both Team Red and Team Blue’s commentary teams, there’s a big difference – Cole & Coach on one side, and Phillips & Saxton on the other.

Now obviously many of you don’t like Michael Cole, but you can’t deny that he’s the voice of WWE and that Coach is a huge improvement over Booker T.

On the other hand, you’ve got Tom Phillips who just doesn’t strike us as a strong lead commentator as of yet, and Byron Saxton who isn’t given the time to grow because Vince clearly loves seeing Corey put him down every two seconds. Both teams can do good work when given the freedom to do so, but we’re giving the nod to Raw.

#4 Star Power

The Undertaker, John Cena, Triple H, Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar. What do these five men have in common? They all feature exclusively on Monday Night Raw either on a week to week basis or part-time.

Of course SmackDown Live still has Randy Orton and Shane McMahon, but by comparison Raw really does run away with it.

We realise that this was clearly by design, and we also realise that Vince favours Raw over SmackDown Live as we’ve seen many times in the past – but that doesn’t make this entry any less untrue. We’d love to see some big names head on over to SD Live, and yes, we are including the main event players in the ‘star power’ discussion.

#3 Storylines

Where's Ryan Ward when you need him? — Why Jinder?

We don’t know what happened but for some reason, the quality of the storytelling on SmackDown Live has decreased dramatically over the course of the last twelve months. They went from producing great content to going back to the same old 50/50 booking, which also included the likes of Jinder Mahal becoming world champion with virtually no build.

On the other hand, Raw’s big stories have felt worthy of us tuning in for, and you have to question whether or not the writing has anything to do with that.

Personally, we’d like to see scripted promos be eliminated altogether, but if we can’t have that, then we’ll settle for Ryan Ward being returned to his position as head writer for the blue brand.

#2 Authority Figures

We can’t believe that we’re saying this, but Stephanie McMahon and Kurt Angle are actually much more bearable than Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan.

While we realise that Steph has been a pain to watch for years now, her character has calmed down quite a bit in her last few appearances. Kurt may pop up a little bit too much for our liking but he doesn’t overdo it, meanwhile, on the other brand, Shane and Bryan’s storyline is starting to confuse us just a little bit.

We aren’t quite sure whether or not WWE wants us to start booing Daniel Bryan, but if that’s the case, then we have to seriously question their logic here. Hopefully, this ends up leading to an interesting blow-off at Mania, but if not, SmackDown Live could be in trouble.

#1 Lineage

This probably shouldn’t matter as much as it does to us, but unfortunately, the constant reminders of the lineage of Raw compared to SmackDown give it yet another advantage in our books.

Not only has it been on the air for much longer, but it also feels like that’s what casual fans and outsiders associate as being WWE’s main show. It’s the first event after Mania and every pay per view, it’s the opening show of the week on Monday nights, and it’s featured much more prominently in their marketing.

We really do hope this changes, because Team Blue hasn’t got a chance at surpassing Raw as things stand.