A recent post by WrestleVotes on Twitter has stated that starting with the Backlash PPV, all WWE PPV’s will once again be dual branded. This information is not correct, and here’s why…
The tweet by WrestleVotes (Who previously broke the news that Neville had quit last year) states that Raw and Smackdown will have matches on every PPV going forward after Backlash and that the move is a result of “so-so ticket sales” and “repetitive matches”. The report was backed up by Brad Shepard of bodyslam.net who cited a picture sent in by a ticket holder for Backlash which states that the show will feature superstars from both Raw and Smackdown.
This is where the debunking can begin though. Last year the PPV following Wrestlemania 33 was WWE Payback and was billed as a Raw brand event. However, as a result of the Draft following Wrestlemania, the PPV ended up featuring superstars from both brands. With Kevin Owens (SD) facing Chris Jericho (Raw), and the infamous House of Horrors match between Bray Wyatt (Raw) and Randy Orton (Smackdown).
The same is happening this year, whereby a draft will take place following Wrestlemania and superstars from both brands will be required on the show in order to culminate feuds between superstars who are parting ways. This will not extend beyond WWE Backlash, and WWE Payback emanating from Baltimore, Maryland on May 27th shall be a Smackdown only event.
This will be an evolving story as we draw closer to Wrestlemania and beyond, but as of right now we can categorically say that the current reports are untrue and that whilst the issues with the product/sales highlighted by WrestleVotes are true, it is not resulting in dual branded PPVs.
WeAreNiche 