Smark Out Moment

Welcome to another edition of Battle of the Brands from Smark Out Moment, where we compare this week's episodes of Raw and SmackDown and determine which one of the two was the better show.

BATTLE OF THE BRANDS:

RAW vs. SMACKDOWN

Note: Going forward, there won't be separate categories for Crowd, Commentary and Visual Presentation, as Raw and SmackDown have become so bland in those regards that there isn't enough of a distinction to really compare the two anymore.


FACTOR 1: MATCHES

Raw's matches were okay. They weren't all that special, but they were fine. Ronda Rousey beating two of The Riott Squad, pass. Bayley and Sasha Banks winning their qualifying match was a done deal. Elias beating Jeff Jarrett was a little blah. Finn Balor beating Lio Rush was okay and EC3 beating Dean Ambrose was rushed. Then, Kurt Angle and Braun Strowman teaming to fight Baron Corbin and Drew McIntyre, meh.

SmackDown's matches did even less for me, though. The only standout moment was Randy Orton's RKO on Mustafa Ali, and even that wasn't one of the most amazing we've ever seen or something.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 2: PROMOS

Raw was mostly a bust. Paige plugging her film? Nia Jax interrupting A Moment of Bliss again for no reason? Bobby Lashley talking, at all?

Big fan of Triple H's work in the opening promo on SmackDown. He really held that down as an authoritarian. The rest, meh, but that's the one that wins it for SmackDown for me.

WINNER: SmackDown

FACTOR 3: STORYLINES

As much as I can see the writing on the wall, I like the idea of suspending Becky Lynch for now. I also kind of was into the Kurt Angle retirement, but they killed it by the end of that segment. Not sure I liked anything else on the show for Raw. They didn't exactly hype me up for Natalya against Dana Brooke, you know?

SmackDown carried over the Becky Lynch stuff and added Charlotte Flair, the next necessary element, into the mix. That makes that kind of a wash. The rest of SmackDown was rather devoid of storyline, as they just continued things we've seen before in a weak fashion. They didn't even bother with Naomi and Carmella. They had them lose after just announcing that they somehow qualified for the match. Why has SmackDown just said "you and you and you" and that's it, compared to Raw's matches to determine who gets a shot? Lame.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 4: SCHEDULING / PACING

While I didn't love what went down on Raw from start to finish, I thought the pacing of the show was perfectly fine.

SmackDown was okay, but there definitely was an odd thing happening with that Daniel Bryan promo happening before the women's Triple Threat match, so Raw wins this.

WINNER: Raw

EXTRA CREDIT BONUS ROUND!!!

Raw gets a bonus point for the backstage segment between Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder where they acknowledged the misspelling of Ryder's name and had a true friendship moment of "I'm toxic" versus "We'll do this together, bud."

Raw loses a point for Jeff Jarrett's guitar not breaking. Womp womp.

No point adjustments, positive or negative, for SmackDown. Nothing stood out to me as great or horrible.

POINT ADJUSTMENTS: Raw (+0 / -0) / SmackDown (+0 / -0)


Not the biggest margin of a victory in the world, but with this new system, the points will be closer when tallied up. Let me know what you think about that in the comments!