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What's the story?
Bodyslam.net recently carried a report from Mike Johnson of PWInsider Elite radio stating that WWE might be making another huge announcement regarding the brand split.
Johnson thinks that with so many shows now under the WWE's banner like 205 Live, two NXT brands as well as Raw and Smackdown, doing away with the current brand split might be a reality.
In case you didn't know...
WWE reintroduced the brand split between Raw and Smackdown Live back in 2016. It opened up two sets of tag team titles, two women's titles and two major championships for each show- the WWE Championship and the Universal Championship.
The WWE has its deepest roster ever currently, necessitating several different types of shows for superstars like NXT UK and 205 Live.
The split has offered more opportunities to both the men and women on the roster to enter the main event with two major titles to chase on two shows.
The heart of the matter
When Alexa Bliss unveiled the set of Women's Tag Team Titles on this week's Raw, it was only one set of titles. That would mean that it would be for both rosters of women to battle over.
For this reason and several others that Johnson has speculated about, he feels that another WWE brand split is inevitable in the near future.
“They announced that the call-ups from the NXT brand would be appearing on both RAW and SmackDown so that fans can see what they’re all about. Maybe I’m adding up 1 and 1 and getting 7, but that plus the Women’s Titles going back and forth between RAW and SmackDown and a couple of SmackDown Live events being cancelled means that the walls that define the brand split are crumbling down, we will see.”
The brand split has provided superstars like Jinder Mahal and Bray Wyatt with the opportunity to be a top champion in the WWE.
It has also provided the women with a lot more chances to be the main faces of a division rather than everyone battling for supremacy on one show.
If there was only one title for the women to chase, ladies like Carmella, Asuka, Becky Lynch or Bayley might not have been Raw/Smackdown Women's Champions regardless of if they deserved it or not.
What's next?
Johnson may be speculating at the moment, but it is strange for the recent NXT call-ups to be on both Raw and Smackdown. Previous call-ups were either on one show or another with clearly defined vignettes made for each superstar for either Raw or Smackdown.
Regarding the women's tag titles, it would make sense to have only one set of the belts for both shows since the women's rosters aren't as deep as the men's.
If the brand split does come to an end in the near future, it will be strange since it was implemented in 2016.
