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

FACTOR 1: CROWD

The SmackDown crowd just seemed kind of out of it for the most part. The Usos cut a super weird promo, which I'll touch on later, but that moment proved that this crowd just did not care at all about what was happening. Which is odd for a go home show for a PPV, and definitely odd for SmackDown.

Raw didn't have the most enthused crowd, but at least they cared at some point throughout the match.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 2: COMMENTARY

Booker T keeps Raw on the up & up when it comes to commentary, but once Otunga comes back it could get awful ugly.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 3: MATCHES

Jinder Mahal had a great showing against AJ in the opening match of SmackDown, and then the main event wasn't bad but other than that theres not much to note.

Raw had some good stuff going on here though. Jeff Hardy's match was a little disappointing, but Finn Balor & Roman Reigns definitely held up. Seth vs. Bray should've been earlier in the show, and Roman vs. Finn be the main event but it still was a good match. Enough to get Raw the win.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 4: PROMOS

Both shows had good opening promos done by a group of guys respectively. SmackDown had a duo of what I thought was crap promos with The Usos having just one confusing yell spree that no one cared about, and then Orton's boring promo on Jinder.

Raw didn't have anything overly special after the open, but Alexa had something decent along with a couple good spots by both Kurt & Bray.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 5: STORYLINES

I still love Jinder Mahal in the main event. He deserves every bit of it with the way he built himself from midcard no one to main event heel. KO vs. AJ has been as good as we wanted it to be, and I can only imagine that the match will hold up. I like face Charlotte even though its still hard for me to like her, but much easier for me to hate Carmella a lot more.

Raw really acted like Braun getting hurt threw a wrench into their main event plans when I really thought Roman was the shoe-in to face Lesnar. Instead, they have orchestrated a five man match at Extreme Rules to see who the number one contender will be. I really like that as all five guys could have a great match together, with Lesnar, and all have viable reasons for being in that spot. I'm still meh on the IC Title scene as Dean vs Miz is starting to get played out for me. I love their women's stuff even though I'm getting a little tired of Bayley right now. And, hey, The Hardy Boyz are still champions! Oh yeah, heel Goldust is going to be freaking awesome.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 6: SCHEDULING / PACING

You know how I am here. I like the two hours more than the three. I think three hours should be saved for the "Big 4" PPV's, but now those are four hour events. Not a fan.

WINNER: SmackDown

FACTOR 7: VISUAL PRESENTATION

Raw actually had a different looking stage! SmackDown may have too, but I remember being more impressed by Raw so obviously they win here.

WINNER: Raw

EXTRA CREDIT BONUS ROUND!!!

Nada.

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


Okay maybe SmackDown wasn't a 6-1 tally bad show, but I was so disappointed. Every SmackDown PPV needs to be treated like they're the underdogs against the longest running episodic TV show in history in Raw, but instead they really played it safe for the go home show. Granted, go home shows are generally boring with all the storylines being in place and usually no major bombshells are dropped 5-6 days before a PPV bar injury. So, maybe I expected too much from SmackDown and was just utterly disappointed. Either way, they take the L this week and I'm just hoping this isn't a sign for Backlash.