5 reasons why WWE should merge the Raw and SmackDown Live titles at SummerSlam 2019

Five weeks on from WrestleMania 35, it feels like there is more scrutiny on WWE’s storylines right now than ever before.

The 2019 Superstar Shake-Up has been the biggest talking point over the last month, as many Superstars have continued to switch brands since the roster changes were supposedly finalised over two nights on the April 15-16 episodes of Raw and SmackDown Live.

There has also been a lot of debate around WWE’s main-roster championships after the Title vs. Title match between Universal champion Seth Rollins and WWE champion Kofi Kingston on the Raw after WrestleMania was brought to an abrupt end following interference from The Bar.

With 10 titles potentially up for grabs on every pay-per-view, it feels like there are far too many championships to be won and lost on WWE television at the moment, and title changes are beginning to lose their importance as a result.

In this article, let’s take a look at five reasons why WWE should consider merging the Raw titles (Universal, United States, Raw Tag Team, Raw Women’s) and the SmackDown Live titles (WWE, Intercontinental, SmackDown Tag Team, SmackDown Women’s) at the SummerSlam 2019 pay-per-view on August 11.

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#5 Quality title storylines over quantity

Looking through the current main-roster titles, it is clear that WWE focuses on four of them – the Universal Championship, WWE Championship and both Women’s Championships – and the storylines involving the secondary titles, as well as the tag titles, are not treated as a priority.

If WWE were to merge the Universal Championship with the WWE Championship, there would be one definitive male champion and nobody could argue over whether the holder of the Raw or SmackDown Live title was more worthy than the other.

The same goes further down the card, where an Intercontinental Championship-United States Championship merger would almost certainly result in WWE treating the title(s) as more of a priority, rather than swapping the champions on a monthly basis just to give fans a title change.

The male tag titles merging together hardly even needs an explanation. Neither set of titles feel meaningful and the SmackDown Live tag division has been decimated by the Shake-Up, so why not put the titles together and go down the same route as the Women’s Tag Team titles?

As for the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Championships, Becky Lynch has made the titles more relevant than ever by holding them both at the same time, which just goes to show that this idea of merging titles can definitely work.

#4 The brand split is essentially dead

Merging the Raw and SmackDown Live titles in 2016 or 2017 would have been a bad move. Both brands had their own rosters and own pay-per-view events, while the Superstars from opposing shows only went head-to-head at the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series.

Nowadays, however, the brand split is essentially dead, especially after Vince McMahon introduced a ‘Wild Card Rule’ which will enable a limited number of Superstars to show up on the other brand whenever they are invited.

If Kevin Owens showed up on SmackDown Live during his 2016-17 run as Universal champion on Raw, it would have made no sense. Now, with new rules in place and a Shake-Up still ongoing four weeks after it was supposed to have ended, it is quite conceivable that current Universal champion Seth Rollins could appear on next week’s SmackDown and defend his title against a member of the blue brand.

Even if WWE decides to keep the brand split and only have merger champions show up on both Raw and SmackDown Live, much like they do with the Women's Tag Team titles, wouldn’t that be better than the chaotic situation that both rosters find themselves in now?

#3 Biggest SummerSlam ever

If the current champions remain as they are until SummerSlam 2019, the title-merging matches would be as follows: Seth Rollins vs. Kofi Kingston (Universal-WWE merger), Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor (United States-Intercontinental merger), Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins vs. Daniel Bryan & Rowan (Raw Tag Team-SmackDown Tag Team merger).

The Raw Women’s Championship and SmackDown Women’s Championship would also need to be contested, which means Becky Lynch would have to lose one or both of her titles before the August pay-per-view.

Now, regardless of the people involved in the matches, the mere fact that titles are being merged would make this one of the biggest SummerSlam events in history.

Survivor Series has felt like a big deal in recent years (more on that shortly) when the build has centred around non-title Champion vs. Champion matches, so can you imagine if SummerSlam is centred around Champion vs. Champion matches when titles are actually on the line?

#2 The Becky Lynch title experiment worked

As we alluded to earlier, Becky Lynch has made the Raw and SmackDown Women’s Championships more relevant over the last five weeks simply because she is the only person holding both titles.

WWE has struggled to create megastars in recent years, and one of the key reasons is due to neither the Raw or SmackDown Live brands having a definitive champion who is seen by everybody as the top man or woman in the company.

For example, Seth Rollins truly became the guy in WWE during his WWE Championship reign in 2015, but did Kevin Owens become the guy when he held the Universal Championship in 2016-17? No, because AJ Styles, John Cena and Bray Wyatt held the WWE Championship over on SmackDown Live at the same time, so it was debatable as to who was WWE’s main man.

The same can be said right now with Kofi Kingston. If his title reign happened in 2014-15, he would feel like an even bigger star because he would be the guy on the roster. However, with Rollins holding the Universal Championship on Raw, Kingston is arguably the second top guy, despite holding WWE’s most prestigious title.

As long as there are two top guys, two top secondary guys, two top tag teams and two top women, WWE’s title reigns and champions will not mean as much as they could if there was only one title holder.

#1 End the Survivor Series Champion vs. Champion format

The 2017 and 2018 Survivor Series events were built around Raw vs. SmackDown Live, with elimination matches and the following Champion vs. Champion encounters taking place: Universal vs. WWE, United States vs. Intercontinental, Raw Tag Team vs. SmackDown Tag Team, Raw Women’s vs. SmackDown Women’s.

This concept was interesting at first, especially in 2017 when Shane McMahon instructed SmackDown Live to invade Raw for the first time, but what followed at the PPV itself turned out to be massively underwhelming.

In 2017, while the Champion vs. Champion matches were of high quality, the elimination match focused on WWE’s old guard (Kurt Angle, Shane McMahon, Triple H etc) and the show-closing moment of Braun Strowman powerslamming HHH resulted in absolutely nothing.

In 2018, SmackDown Live lost 6-0 against Raw in main-show matches, so Shane promised that there would be big changes on the blue brand moving forward. However, no changes took place and Survivor Series was quickly forgotten about.

Simply put, although the Champion vs. Champion format at Survivor Series seems good on paper, it always fails to progress storylines, which is why a title merger at SummerSlam would allow WWE to go back to its previous Survivor Series format in time for this year’s November PPV.