That Was Then, Is This Too? 10.20.09: What Bragging Rights?

Posted by Jasper Gerretsen on 10.20.2009

With the big clash of the brands scheduled for this Sunday, we take a look back at a similar match held almost four years ago in another edition of That Was Then, Is This Too?.

Welcome to yet another installment of That Was Then, Is This Too?, the column that looks for parallel lines in all the right places. As usual, we have comments.

You had me at "Ballad of Lacey". Awesome job.

Posted By: SAVE_BEAR.729 (Registered) on October 13, 2009 at 03:16 PM

This was truly amazing. Awesome stuff.

Posted By: Tower of Bauer (Registered) on October 13, 2009 at 07:50 PM

Wow, praise from Caesar. And Octavianus I guess.

AotF/Lacey/Aries/etc etc was definitely my favorite wrestling angle since the Raven/Tommy/Beulah stuff from the original ECW. I'm a sucker for a bloody love story.

Posted By: Acid (Guest) on October 13, 2009 at 07:37 PM

I briefly studied that feud when I started writing this column, and while I think that it's safe to say that it at least served as inspiration, I decided it wasn't similar enough to run with it.

Great story arc, great write up. I really think now is the time for Jacobs to return to ROH. His presence has almost always been important to major storylines, and his character development is unsurpassed by the current roster. On top of that, he's now one of the longest-tenured members of the roster. I don't know where his story goes from here (perhaps he finally finds his redemption?), but I hope it continues regardless!

Posted By: Guest#7192 (Guest) on October 14, 2009 at 02:21 AM

Like I said in my article, Jimmy Jacobs appears to be done with Ring of Honor for now, as he has been removed from the company's roster page and hasn't appeared since Violent Tendencies.

It is now time for the return of the furry boots...

After the death of AotF, Jimmy comes back after a long absence trying to find himself. Just when A Double thinks that he's beaten everyone and there's no one left, suddenly, a familiar tune rings out...

"YOU GOT THE TOUCH!"

HUSS! HUSS! HUSS!

The road to redemption begins where the first steps were made.

Posted By: Guest#9332 (Guest) on October 15, 2009 at 09:57 PM

That would certainly be great to see, although he'd have to come out to different entrance music due to ROH's changed stance on using copyrighted music. I'd definitely like to see this match happen though.

With that out of the way, let's go to our regularly scheduled banner!



That Was Then, Is This Too? - What Bragging Rights?

2009 has definitely been the year of PPV rebranding for the WWE, with changes in format and/or name announced for pretty much every show that isn't part of the big four. We just had a Hell in a Cell PPV, and we have a Tables, Ladders and Chairs PPV on the horizon. Before we get that far however, we have the Bragging Rights PPV, which will be headlined by seven men teams representing the RAW and SmackDown shows duking it out for dominance. This show will replace Cyber Sunday, which for the past few years had been a gimmick PPV of its own with fans selecting challengers, weapons and stipulations.

On the RAW side of things, we have D-Generation X as co-captains leading a team that also consists of Big Show, one half of the Unified Tag Team Champions, United States champion The Miz, Kofi Kingston, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger and Mark Henry. SmackDown is represented by a team captained by Chris Jericho, the other half of the Unified Tag Team champions, and consists of Intercontinental champion John Morrison, Kane, Dolph Ziggler, JTG and Shad Gaspard Cryme Tyme, Eric Escobar and Drew McIntyre.

After the captains had been announced, the five other members of the RAW team and six other members of the SmackDown team were decided through a series of qualifying matches held on both brands. Of all these qualifying matches, the biggest upset no doubt came when the young rookie Eric Escobar, fresh out of Florida Championship Wrestling, defeated SmackDown veteran Matt Hardy in his first ever televised match.

So on October 25th, 2009, fourteen men will do battle in a massive tag team match to once again decide which of the brands is superior. What's most interesting about these teams is the relatively high amount of new faces, especially on the SmackDown side of things, that will be making their debut in a PPV main event. The leap is especially huge for Eric Escobar, who just a month ago was wrestling down in WWE's developmental territory. Of course the man is no stranger to interpromotional rivalries, having spent most of his pre-WWE career in Puerto Rico, where the IWA and WWC companies have been at each other's throats for years, with wrestlers constantly jumping back and forth between companies.

Obviously that rivalry is very different from the one WWE is trying to create between SmackDown and RAW. At this point it seems almost impossible to actually create any kind of interest in a storyline like this, considering the fact that the brand extension is pretty much non-existant. Each brand still has its champions and the annual draft is still being held, but time and again superstars and divas are traded between brands seemingly randomly, even at the whim of RAW's guest hosts as we found out last week. Furthermore, there are no brand exclusive PPVs anymore, which seems to have lead to less time to build feuds and less PPV time for talent lower on the card.

And then there's the problem of authority figures. SmackDown is currently under control of Theodore Long, pretty much the most experienced on-air authority figure in recent history. Authority is used in the very loosest sense of the word here, as Long has spent most of 2009 getting yelled at by Vince McMahon and threatened by The Undertaker. Of course that's still more authority than RAW has, as the red brand has been under control of random celebrities ever since the Donald Trump Buys RAW storyline fiasco.

So with less than a month to build a rivalry between two brands that have no clear representation, let's take a look back at the last time the brands clashed on the PPV stage; a classic five man elimination tag match in the main event of Survivor Series 2005.

That Was Then...

Of course back in 2005, the brand extension was pretty much set in stone, with Superstars from the red and blue brands rarely appearing on the same show outside of the big four PPV shows. One such show that did feature matches from both brands was the RAW Homecoming show held on October 3rd of that year. During a special match between SmackDown superstars, RAW general manager Eric Bischoff came out and cancelled the match by turning off the arena lights. When Long did the same during a RAW match later that night, it was considered a declaration of war and the two brands brawled.

SmackDown would strike the first blow in the feud in the opening match of RAW's Cyber Sunday PPV, when the team of Rey Mysterio and Matt Hardy got the win over RAW powerhouses Chris Masters and Snitsky. Soon after Cyber Sunday the feuding general managers decided on a time and place to settle the conflict: Survivor Series. Besides a traditional five man elimination tag match, which was the perfect format to settle this, the two men would also meet in a singles match on the same show.

Over the next few weeks the war would rage on, with wrestlers from both brands invading their opponents' shows. With World Tag Team Champions Kane and Big Show leading the charge, Team RAW was especially effective in their invasions, repeatedly beating down SmackDown team captain and World Heavyweight Champion Batista. Rey Mysterio would repeatedly come to Big Dave's aid, and the two would eventually form a tag team to take on the World Tag Team Champions at that year's Armageddon show.

Of course the two captains still had to select their teams, and this was done through a series of qualifying matches that generated an interesting mix of heels and faces on both sides of the match. RAW had a slight advantage here, as respected veteran Shawn Michaels lead a team that consisted of two tag teams. SmackDown meanwhile was lead by young upstart Batista, who had made it to the top of the mountain just six months earlier and who had been drafted to SmackDown on the most recent draft. He had to coexist with JBL, with whom he had had a bloody rivalry that ended just weeks prior, and while he had teamed with Randy Orton before, the former Evolution stablemates weren't exactly on speaking terms. His good friend Rey Mysterio and Bobby Lashley rounded out the team.

Going into the event, it seemed like SmackDown had everything going against it, with Batista being injured after repeated assaults from Kane and Big Show and the team in general being a lot less cohesive than the RAW team. On the show itself however, SmackDown got the first win after Teddy Long beat Eric Bischoff following an appearance from The Boogeyman, whose diet of worms apparently gave him a heightened sense of loyalty.

The main event match was preceded by a video package and footage of both brands' locker rooms cheering their team on, which was a nice touch. To play up the feud some more, the match was overseen by both a RAW and a SmackDown referee, and featured healthy amounts of trash talk from both announce teams. The match itself was surprisingly even. Lashley was the first man eliminated after his inexperience led him to be caught unaware by Kane, who chokeslammed him from the apron after powering through most of the RAW team. Kane was the next man to be eliminated after a spinebuster from Batista, but he immediately got his revenge by delivering a double chokeslam with his tag team partner, allowing Big Show to eliminate the SmackDown team captain.

With both teams tied at four men a brawl erupted. SmackDown took quick advantage, with the unlikely teamwork between Rey Mysterio and JBL leading to Big Show, Carlito and Masters being eliminated in quick succession. Shawn Michaels proved exactly why he was the team captain by keeping his cool and successfully eliminating Rey Mysterio by superkicking him on a springboard attempt. JBL suffers the same fate soon after, and Randy Orton is left to face the RAW team captain as the crowd chants for Undertaker, with whom Orton had been feuding for most of 2005. Orton stalled for a bit before both men countered each other's finishers. Shawn rallied through his signature offense, but it was JBL's distraction that finally allowed Orton to secure the win for his brand and make SmackDown look dominant pretty much for the first time since the brand extension.

In the aftermath of Survivor Series, it was general manager Eric Bischoff who had to suffer for his brand's loss, as he was put on trial by Mr. McMahon and eventually fired as general manager. Meanwhile Orton would resume his feud with The Undertaker, after the Deadman jumped him on Survivor Series and destroyed pretty much the entire SmackDown locker room to close off the show.

...Is This Too?

Now, almost four years later, we once again have a battle of the brands. This time however, the execution is very different. Starting at the very top, there is the problem that neither brand has a proper authority figure. Teddy Long has been made to look spineless and weak, and RAW has no regular authority at all, beyond an endless stream of B-list celebrities that come in to plug their latest show, movie or product.

The build to the big match hasn't been too spectacular either. Where the Survivor Series match got almost two months of build, with both teams constantly looking to invade each other's shows, Bragging Rights only gets two weeks to build to the big match, with all qualifying matches crammed into that brief period of time.

The format of the match is also different, in that it appears to be a regular tag match rather than the traditional Survivor Series elimination format. This might be a minor detail, but I'm afraid that the match will end up being too much of a clusterfuck because of it, especially with seven man teams. All they needed to do was add an eighth man on both sides to have themselves a proper Cibernetico match.

Of course the most important problem with this match is that the brand extension is pretty much non-existent at this point, with random trades happening throughout the year and SmackDown team captain Chris Jericho appearing weekly on both brands pretty much since winning the tag team championship.

Without a strong brand extension, it seems like the whole concept just falls flat. In 2005, it was extremely rare to see a SmackDown wrestler on a RAW show and vice versa. In 2009, it happens weekly. While both brands still have a very different product, it just seems like WWE is not even trying to create any kind of significant rivalry. Survivor Series had almost two months to build up the tension, and with RAW and SmackDown superstars at each other's throat constantly it looked like the whole thing actually mattered.

Of course we still have one RAW and one SmackDown to go before the big clash, but at this point I'm pretty pessimistic about the execution. I simply can't imagine the casual fan truly caring about this match, because WWE has done almost nothing to make them care. And most importantly: Why isn't this match being held at Survivor Series? It's a PPV built around big tag team matches, and it would definitely give WWE more time to build something resembling a proper feud between the two brands. The only way I can see this concept redeeming itself would be some sort of super-match at Survivor Series, along the lines of Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Randy Orton, John Cena and Big Show vs. Batista, The Undertaker, Chris Jericho, CM Punk and Rey Mysterio in a clash of (former) world champions.