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 crowd seemed hot for SmackDown Live. Maybe it was just me, but that Brother Love costume from Kofi popped me big time alongside the rest of New Day and their costumes. Bruce Prichard alongside Conrad Thompson have one of the greatest podcasts ever going right now called "Something to Wrestle". So seeing Brother Love on SD Live got me and some of the crowd to pop. That isn't the only reason, but it seemed that people were just ready for SmackDown Live which is definitely a change of pace.

WINNER: SmackDown

FACTOR 2: COMMENTARY

Corey Graves dropped a "Something to Wrestle" reference by name dropping The Alabama Dream! That was enough for me to absolutely love this SD show. Not that the Raw commentary was bad whatsoever, but I think SmackDown wins it for me this week.

WINNER: SmackDown

FACTOR 3: MATCHES

Let's start with SD Live. They had a great 2 out of 3 falls match with Roode and Ziggler that only could've been better if it was given PPV amount time. AJ beat up one of the Singh brothers again for another reason, Rusev defeated Big E, and Shinsuke Nakamura gets a spot on Team SmackDown after beating KO in a fun match.

Raw had a little bit more going on with two title matches. Matt Hardy loses to The Miz as he retains his Intercontinental Championship, and in the main event Alexa Bliss retains her Women's Championship against Mickie James. I think the two matches could've easily been flip-flopped and put Miz with the IC belt in the main event, but that is just my personal opinion. In other matches we see Samoa Joe get a win over Apollo Crews, Finn bests Cesaro, Kane beats another former World Champ in Seth Rollins(wut?), an awful tag team match where the winner doesn't even matter outside of the fact that Tex Ferguson & Chad 2 Badd made an appearance, and Kalisto gets a win.

I love 2 out of 3 falls matches, and Nak vs. KO was fun. However, Raw had the better overall matches.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 4: PROMOS

Strangerer Things and The New Day promo headlines SmackDown where Shane-O-Macs 10 minute promo of nothing and Jinder Mahals weekly repeat hurt the show more than anything.

The return of Stephanie McMahon dissing Kurt Angle & Daniel Bryan back on Raw headline the show. Stephanie is a class A heel, and DB offers some sort of peace saying he disagreed with how Shane did things the week before. Other than that, seeing Jordan destroy the guitar for Elias was the only other big(ish) thing, and it wasn't that big.

Having to choose in another poor promo week.. I guess I'll take SmackDown. They made me laugh with Strangerer Things, and you know how I feel about the New Day promo. Good stuff.

WINNER: SmackDown

FACTOR 5: STORYLINES

What is going on with Kane?! He has beaten two former Universal/World Champs in the last two weeks with Seth Rollins and Finn Balor, but where is this going? I hope these wins just don't land him a spot on Team Raw or something. I hope this is a real run for a guy that deserves it. Other than that, we are slowly building for Survivor Series with the GM's and Commissioners being a bigger part of the shows. We are seeing each team come together, and those superstars will be locked into that for the weeks to come. Miz and Baron Corbin are set for a date at the November classic and have taken to social media to further it. I'm ready to see the other matches get a little more into it with their feuds like The Usos and The Shield, the Women's match, and the two main title holders. Yes, Heyman and Jinder have said some things throughout the last couple weeks but we need more. I'm disappointed that they're leaning on their titles to set up the matches when I would like to see something more personal like Miz and Corbin are doing on social media.

The feuds on the individual shows are highlighted by AJ Styles & Shinsuke Nakamura with a touch of Rusev in there. The Miztourage and Braun Strowman are probably the best thing Raw has right now alongside Kane drinking from the fountain of youth, and I like that quite a bit.

WINNER: Raw

FACTOR 6: SCHEDULING / PACING

You know my deal here.

WINNER: SmackDown

FACTOR 7: VISUAL PRESENTATION

Kane going on this run is giving me some nostalgia at the highest degree, and Strowmans return to destroy everything. Raw wins despite the strong showing thanks to New Day and their epic costumes.

WINNER: Raw

EXTRA CREDIT BONUS ROUND!!!

Plus one for SmackDown thanks to New Day & Corey Graves giving Something to Wrestle some (Brother) Love. Minus one from Raw for that horrid tag match.

POINT ADJUSTMENTS: Raw (+0 / -1) / SmackDown (+1 / -0)


SmackDown picks up a surprise win this week with some major entertainment value. Great promos and matches is great entertainment and that is what the show provided this week. I thoroughly enjoyed watching SmackDown for the first time in months, and I hope this trend to continues since raw has been fun to watch for some time now. We need more brand competition, and I think we are starting to get that.