Roman Reigns and the Bloodline seeks to unify the Tag Titles. The Usos, who are part of the Bloodline Faction, currently holds the WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship. RK-Bro, Randy Orton, and Matt Riddle are the RAW Tag Team Champions.
The question this writer has is, is this the end of Brand Extension in WWE? Brand Extension was first started in 2002 and continued until roughly around 2010-2012. There is some debate at this point because WWE Superstars frequently began appearing on both shows at this point. There were still titles that WWE would still act as if they were brand exclusive, at this time. Brand Extension however was effectively dead in 2013 when John Cena lost to Randy Orton to unify the WWE and World Heavyweight Championship.
However, the brand extension was restarted in 2016, with Smackdown taking a surprising growth in the ratings, eventually, they would even pass RAW. The first time in WWE history that Smackdown had better ratings than RAW.
For many years, the brand extension seemed to be holding with wrestlers mostly being on one show or the other. Their appeared to be separate creative teams for a while but this aspect of brand extension has largely ended already. Bruce Prichard now helms the creative direction of RAW, Smackdown, and even NXT.
At WrestleMania 38, Roman Reigns won the WWE Championship from Brock Lesnar, while defending the WWE Universal Championship at the same time. After beating Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns has been touted as the undisputed WWE Universal Champion.
The last time they unified they ended brand extension, they also unified the tag team titles then as well, so it seems likely that this match isn’t just for giggles, that the winner is going to be both the RAW and Smackdown Tag Team Champions.
The Usos have had a long-time championship run for 264 days. RK-Bro who just won the titles again at RAW has been champions for not even a week yet. However, they are very popular with the crowds. It’s hard to say who will win, and WWE could still pull a non-finish as well.
Personally, I hope it’s RK-Bro. We’ll find out…
Follow Fantom Sports on Twitter for all of your latest Sports news.
Check out our website for more Wrestling news if you enjoyed this article.
