RAW vs. SMACKDOWN
The Ultimate WrestleMania
By Dave Lenker
(From The Wrestler/Inside Wrestling Special, Vol. 6, 2006; On sale March 14)
Blame lance storm for all this. It was by no means his idea to do what he did, but the wrestling history books will always note that he fired the first shot. Two months after Vince McMahon officially ended the very real WWF vs. WCW war by buying the scraps of the company Ted Turner built for a measly few million dollars, a new war started.
Storm, a WCW wrestler at the time, showed up uninvited and interfered in a match on the Memorial Day edition of Raw, telecast live from Calgary on May 28, 2001. He superkicked Perry Saturn, costing Saturn and Terri Runnels a meaningless mixed tag match against Steve Blackman and Trish Stratus.
In the weeks that followed, much to the dismay of “Vinnie Mac,” other former WCW stars interfered in WWE business. By the end of June, a full-fledged WCW faction had formed. By early-July, a strange WCW-ECW Alliance had been built. And by Thanksgiving, thanks to some horrendous booking, WCW and the Alliance were dead.
You probably don’t want this history lesson to continue. You probably know what’s happened since then. The WCW and WWE world titles were merged into one undisputed WWE World championship, which was split back into two in a roundabout way eight months later. Since then, we’ve had a brand extension with a draft, two separate rosters, single-brand pay-per-views, a few draft lotteries, and even the occasional crossover match. All of this in the name of creating a rivalry to replace that old WWF vs. WCW war that thrilled us for so many years and made so many people so much money.
Surprise, surprise—it finally started to work this fall. Smackdown stars started showing up on Raw. Raw stars fired back on Smackdown. Some of the most popular men on the red team were hated when they stepped through the blue ropes, and vice versa. None of us forgot the fact that all these wrestlers were getting paychecks from the same company, but the Raw-Smackdown feud was fun. People were getting excited by it and choosing sides.
Smackdown scored a huge win in a monumental 10-man brand vs. brand elimination match at Survivor Series when Randy Orton was the sole survivor of the bout. Honestly, though, what exactly did that prove? Were you convinced that Smackdown was the superior brand just because “The Legend Killer” was the last man standing in that frenzied encounter?
Didn’t think so.
The Raw-Smackdown feud has petered out since.
Here’s McMahon’s chance to rekindle it in a gigantic way. All he had to do was listen to Kurt Angle on January 16. Who could blame him if he wasn’t paying attention. Our Olympic hero/zero has said a lot of stupid things in the last few months, but he had a gem of an idea that night when he said to Edge, “Let’s unify these titles … right here, right now!”
Okay, he got it mostly right. Unify the WWE and World titles? Not quite. Doing it right there on January 16 in Raleigh, North Carolina? Definitely not.
We got a better idea when Angle issued his impromptu challenge: WWE champion vs. World champion. One fall to a finish. No time limit. Anyone who dares to interfere gets fired on the spot. April 2, 2006—main event of WrestleMania 22.
We don’t suggest that the winner takes home both titles. For better or worse, WWE is committed to the brand extension, and we wouldn’t want to see the two big, shiny belts defended on only one brand’s shows. We also wouldn’t want to see this unified champion conveniently lose one of his belts on a show shortly after ’Mania so that everything evened out again.
Let the winner retain his title. Give him a chance to hold up both belts at the end of the year’s biggest extravaganza, but before he steps back through the ropes, force him to hand that other belt over to Vince McMahon. McMahon could then go about organizing a tournament for the loser’s championship, which would immediately become vacant at the end of ’Mania.
Backtracking for a moment, let WWE business go on as scheduled all the way until WrestleMania. Whoever has the WWEtitle when the sun comes up on April 2 gets to battle whoever has the World title at the start of that most special day. If the World title changes hands on, say, the last Smackdown prior to WrestleMania, the new champion steps into that main event spot at the last moment.
Angle vs. Cena would work. So would Edge vs. Angle. Or Triple-H vs. Angle. Or Edge vs. The Undertaker. How about Cena vs. Orton? Or Mark Henry vs. Snitsky? (Fine, scratch that last possibility.) Of course, Batista vs. Cena could have been the ultimate interbrand mega-showdown. If only Batista could keep that triceps of his in one piece …
Among the myriad possibilities are old rivalries and rivalries that don’t even exist at this point. Make it a WWE champ vs. World champ match at WrestleMania, however, and you’re guaranteed to get yourself an instant rivalry. It would be that big. While it might be a stretch to argue that the winner of any one match would prove conclusively which brand reigned supreme, it would provide big time bragging rights for either the red or the blue squad. “One-on-one, man-to-man, head-to-head, our best guy is better than yours,” the folks on the winning side could boast.
Ah, but the great thing is this wouldn’t have to be limited to one match. WWE could fill out the rest of the card with one Raw vs. Smackdown match after another. Keep the title vs. title theme going with a U.S. champion vs. Intercontinental champion match. Fascinating matchup possibilities there as well. Why not put the same stipulations in place for that, too. Winner keeps his title. Loser kisses his goodbye and hopes for the best in the upcoming tournament. We might as well match up the tag team champions of each brand as well. Same stips, of course.
That takes us to the cruiserweight title match. Let Raw pick a cruiserweight challenger from its roster. Smackdown could do the same for the women’s title match (which would probably mean either Melina or Jillian Hall would get to go for the gold). If the Raw wrestler were to win the cruiserweight belt, Raw would become the home of that title. Same deal if a Smackdown diva were to win the women’s championship.
Not a bad way to rekindle that Raw-Smackdown rivalry, right?
That would fill out roughly half the WrestleMania card and leave a huge chunk of talent with nothing to do on the biggest show of the year. We’d have faith in WWE’s ability to create intriguing Raw vs. Smackdown matches from all the talent that would be left.
The fallout from such a supercard could set up the single-brand WWE pay-per-views that follow nicely (there would be a few big title vacancies to fill) and add a little extra intrigue to the annual draft lottery.
There’s no doubt that McMahon has spent quite a bit of time thinking about what has to be an inevitable match between the WWE and World champions since Brock Lesnar took his then-undisputed WWE World championship belt to Smackdown shortly after SummerSlam 2002, and then-Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff presented Triple-H with the World title belt as recognition of the fact the he was Raw’s top star.
He must be waiting for the perfect time to give us the match. Maybe he’s waiting for the matchup to be right.
Perhaps he’s going to give us the match on a PPV not called WrestleMania with the hope of drawing a huge buy rate that he probably wouldn’t get otherwise. But why not give us the very best his company could possibly offer on the biggest show of the year by far.
Of course, with the event so close, it’s highly doubtful our suggestions might be considered for this WrestleMania. But how about next year? Certainly the NFL and the AFL couldn’t have foreseen what the Super Bowl was going to become when the Packers squared off against the Chiefs in 1967. But someone had a dream 40 years ago, and that’s what got the whole thing rolling.
We, too, can dream about what could become a wonderful annual tradition on the most wonderful day of the sports entertainment calendar—a wonderful annual tradition a half-decade in the making.
