Report: No Plans To End WWE Brand Split
The WWE brand split won't be going away
Apr 19, 2022
WWE's defined brand split has appeared to be more and more in jeopardy since WrestleMania 38.
Roman Reigns defeated Brock Lesnar to become the WWE Universal Champion at The Showcase Of The Immortals, making him the world champion on both Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown. The Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships will also be unified at WrestleMania Backlash in a Winner Take All Match between RK-Bro and The Usos.
Despite the tag team and world titles merging, though, the brand split seemingly won't be going away.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE aren't planning to merge the rosters right now, although Meltzer noted Vince McMahon 'could decide something different five minutes from now.'
As of Monday, though, nobody within WWE had heard about any plans to merge the Raw and SmackDown rosters.
WWE's latest brand split has been in place since 2016 and several drafts have been held since then to determine each brand's roster.
Separate pay-per-views were the norm for the first couple of years with the exception of major shows like Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and SummerSlam, but co-promoted pay-per-views were reintroduced to the calendar in 2018.