Mid 20th Century
97-496: The brand extension , also referred to as the brand split , is the separation of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE 's roster of wrestlers (and, at various times, creative staff) into distinct divisions, or "brands". The promotion's wrestlers are assigned to a brand via the annual WWE Draft and exclusively perform on that brand's weekly television show, with some exceptions. Throughout its history, WWE has utilized
194-708: A United Kingdom-based brand that would be produced exclusively in the country. In June 2018, the brand was officially established as NXT UK , a sub-brand of the American-based NXT. In September 2021, NXT was rebranded as NXT 2.0 and then in February 2022, the 205 Live brand was dissolved. In 2024, NXT UK will be relaunched as NXT Europe and feature wrestlers from all of Europe. According to Shawn Michaels , two additional NXT sub-brands will be launched that same year: NXT Mexico and NXT Japan which will also feature wrestlers from Mexico and Japan respectively. NXT Europe
291-683: A WCW World Heavyweight Championship match between Kevin Nash and Hollywood Hogan was quickly revealed to be a ruse that reunited the core members of the nWo as the "nWo Elite". The match was universally panned and was considered to have damaged WCW's credibility and begin their decline. In October 1999, former WWF writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara were hired by WCW. Both men attempted to bring their WWF-style writing to Nitro , including edgier storylines, lengthier non-wrestling segments, and an increased amount of sexuality. Many WCW fans greatly resented Russo and Ferrara for changing their programming to be like
388-676: A billed weight of 205 pounds and under) and was active from 2016 to 2022 (first as a Raw subsidiary, then as a standalone brand, and finally as an NXT subsidiary). In 2001, the Monday Night War , the rivalry between the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) ended with the WWF emerging victorious. The WWF would acquire the majority of assets of WCW, and later Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) (the third largest promotion in
485-403: A brand extension between WCW and the popular New World Order (nWo) stable, which would have seen the group expand in scope and the production of nWo-branded programming; this concept was scrapped due to budgetary concerns. However, in 1997, an nWo-exclusive pay-per-view , Souled Out , was held. A year later in 1998, WCW began co-branding all of its pay-per-view events under the "WCW/nWo" banner,
582-470: A draft on Raw and went into effect one week later on April 1. On May 6, 2002, the WWF was renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, which became an orphaned initialism in 2011). On June 13, 2006, after an Extreme Championship Wrestling reunion pay-per-view and video releases, WWE announced an addition to its prime time programming with ECW on Sci-Fi . The new ECW brand launched in May 2006 and served as
679-399: A larger scale). With the acquisition of new talent, the WWF's already large roster doubled in size. In order to allow equal opportunity to all wrestlers, the company endorsed a brand extension to have the WWF represented and promoted with two brands, Raw and SmackDown! , named after the promotion's two primary television programs, Raw and SmackDown! , respectively. In early 2002,
776-652: A match with both belts on the line; Booker defeated Steiner for his fourth WCW World Heavyweight Championship while retaining the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. Just as it had been on the initial Nitro , the final match of the final Nitro and the final match in WCW as a whole was between long-time WCW rivals Ric Flair and Sting , a match that was more informal than their usual encounters (Sting and Flair were seen smiling and nodding respectfully towards each other throughout
873-873: A new brand extension was introduced on July 19, 2016. Raw drafted the WWE Women's Champion, the United States Champion, and the WWE Tag Team Champions, while SmackDown drafted the WWE Champion and the Intercontinental Champion; NXT champions were ineligible to be drafted. This distribution of championships remained unchanged at the Battleground pay-per-view, which took place the Sunday immediately following
970-466: A practice that continued into 1999. In the mid-2000s, New Japan Pro-Wrestling introduced a brand extension which divided their roster into two sub-brands: Wrestle Land and Lock Up; around the same period fellow Japanese promotion Kaientai Dojo promoted two sub-brands for their roster, Get and Rave. In 2013, AAA launched a brand extension that split their roster into two sub-brands, Evolución and Fusión . A similar concept to WWE's brand extension
1067-703: A second draft of 2019 occurring in October, the Wild Card Rule was abolished. In May 2020, select and limited interbrand matches returned with the introduction of the Brand to Brand Invitational, though under stricter guidelines than the previous Wild Card Rule. This happened largely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic , in which several wrestlers have opted to not perform during the outbreak, thus resulting in fewer available talent on each show. The separation of
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#17327879385981164-754: A segment of Raw in which D-Generation X (DX) travelled to the Norfolk Scope arena in Norfolk where Nitro was being broadcast (WWF was nearby in Hampton, Virginia the same night), Eric Bischoff challenged Vince McMahon to face him in a match to be held at Slamboree 1998 ; McMahon never formally recognized the challenge and did not appear. The July 6, 1998, episode of Nitro from the Georgia Dome in Atlanta saw Goldberg defeat Hollywood Hogan for
1261-516: A soft brand extension between its Dynamite and Collision programs, which saw select wrestlers featured exclusively on one of the two shows for a select period of time; this was mostly abolished after CM Punk (who almost exclusively was on Collision ) was fired for his legitimate backstage incident with Jack Perry at that year's All In event. Professional wrestling promotion 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s A professional wrestling promotion
1358-730: A talent exchange agreement, which meant that SmackDown! wrestlers could appear on ECW and vice versa. This allowed the United States Championship and WWE Tag Team Championship to be shared between the two brands. In July 2008, the WWE Divas Championship was created for SmackDown, allowing SmackDown's women wrestlers to compete for a title. A talent exchange between ECW and Raw then began in September 2008. After John Morrison and The Miz of ECW became World Tag Team Champions, they appeared more frequently on
1455-433: A third brand, and a revival of the original ECW promotion. Both instances of the brand extensions required that representatives of each brand draft "superstars" (terminology used by the company to refer to its contracted personnel) onto each brand in a draft lottery . After WWE bought all the assets of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 2003, the company began releasing DVDs promoting the original ECW. Soon afterwards,
1552-401: A three-hour show and SmackDown being a two-hour show, Raw received three picks each round and SmackDown received two. Six draft picks had to be made amongst the non-title holders from WWE's developmental brand , NXT . Seth Rollins was picked first by Raw, with WWE Champion Dean Ambrose being SmackDown's first pick. Two other brands would also be established during the second split. After
1649-442: Is a company or business that regularly performs shows involving professional wrestling . "Promotion" also describes a role which entails management, advertising and logistics of running a wrestling event. Within the convention of the show , the company is a sports governing body which sanctions wrestling matches and gives authority to the championships and is responsible for maintaining the divisions and their rankings. In truth,
1746-506: Is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and broadcast weekly every Monday night on TNT in the United States from September 4, 1995 to March 26, 2001. Created by Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner , the show's premiere was notable for sparking a period of television known as the " Monday Night War ". For the entirety of the show's run, Nitro went head-to-head in
1843-514: Is currently utilized by the Japanese promotions CyberFight , which promotes four distinct sub-brands, and Gleat , which promotes three sub-brands. Following the acquisition of Ring of Honor (ROH) by All Elite Wrestling (AEW) founder Tony Khan in March 2022, ROH and AEW are operated independently with separate rosters and championships while both are under Khan's ownership. In 2023, AEW launched
1940-801: The NXT UK Women's Championship and NXT UK Tag Team Championship ; the WWE United Kingdom Championship was renamed to NXT United Kingdom Championship in January 2020. A secondary title of the NXT brand was also introduced in mid-2018, the NXT North American Championship . In early 2019, the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship was established to be shared between Raw, SmackDown, and NXT. In May 2019,
2037-878: The National Wrestling Alliance , act as an umbrella organization which governs titles that are shared among multiple promotions. During the 1950s, the National Wrestling Alliance oversaw many wrestling territories such as Mid-Atlantic Wrestling and NWA San Francisco , in a business model known as the "territory system". This is a list of the most notable past and present professional wrestling promotions. Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct (Modern-era) Defunct (Territory-era) Active Defunct WCW Monday Nitro WCW Monday Nitro , also known as WCW Nitro or simply Nitro ,
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#17327879385982134-660: The TakeOver banner), while NXT UK had this similar practice. Initially, the Undisputed WWE Championship and the original WWE Women's Championship were available to both brands. The other championships were exclusive to the brand the champion was a part of. When the brand extension began, Raw received the Intercontinental Championship and European Championship when their respective holders were drafted, while SmackDown! became
2231-563: The WCW World Heavyweight Championship , which Booker T had won on the final Nitro . The match was met with negative reactions from the fans and viewers at home, when the WWF wrestlers interfered at the end of the match. With WWF focused on splitting its roster, the Invasion storyline was used as a second resort. Following the end of the angle at Survivor Series , the WWF executed their alternate plan, which
2328-477: The WCW World Heavyweight Championship . Nitro is best remembered for the New World Order (nWo), with former WWF wrestlers Scott Hall , Kevin Nash and "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan as rebellious heels plotting to take over WCW. Despite ratings success, both the angle and stable would later be criticized for the heel wrestlers almost never losing, and for what was seen as overexposure. As the nWo expanded,
2425-490: The WCW World Television Championship in the trash and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan found and claimed the belt weeks later on an episode of Saturday Night . The only wrestler to appear on both Nitro and Raw on the same night was Rick Rude. Rude was able to appear on both shows because he was not under contract with the WWF at the time, appearing on a handshake deal with McMahon on Raw – which
2522-550: The WWE 24/7 Championship was established. Defended across all five of WWE's brands, it was open to anyone, regardless of gender or WWE employment status. In October 2019, after NXT's creative team took over 205 Live, the WWE Cruiserweight Championship was renamed to NXT Cruiserweight Championship, with the title shared between 205 Live and NXT, and was later extended to NXT UK in January 2020. A secondary title
2619-714: The WWE Network and Peacock . WWE has also released three Best of WCW Monday Nitro DVD sets. The first episode of Nitro was broadcast from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota on September 4, 1995. The featured matches on the one-hour broadcast were Brian Pillman versus Jushin Thunder Liger , Ric Flair versus WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Sting , and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan taking on Big Bubba Rogers . The show
2716-500: The WWE Tag Team Championship and World Tag Team Championship respectively and both received new belt designs one week later. Meanwhile, a new World Heavyweight Championship was introduced for the brand that did not draft Roman Reigns in the 2023 draft , with Reigns keeping his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship (it is currently unclear if one of Reigns' titles will be retired). SmackDown drafted Reigns, thus
2813-900: The World Heavyweight Championship for Raw. Shortly thereafter, Raw became the exclusive brand for the World Tag Team Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, and the Women's Championship. Meanwhile, SmackDown! created the WWE Tag Team Championship and revived the United States Championship . The result was each brand having four championships: World Heavyweight, Intercontinental, World Tag Team, and Women's titles for Raw; WWE, United States, Tag Team, and Cruiserweight titles for SmackDown!. When ECW
2910-653: The Cruiserweight Championship was defended on the cruiserweight-exclusive show, 205 Live . 205 Live would become its own brand in 2018, making the title exclusive to the brand. The WWE United Kingdom Championship was unveiled in December 2016 with its inaugural holder determined in January 2017. The title later became the top championship for the United Kingdom-based NXT spinoff, NXT UK, which debuted in mid-2018 and also introduced
3007-565: The Edge the night before. The rock band KISS appeared in August 1999, and debuted a wrestler named The Demon while performing " God of Thunder ". According to Dean Malenko , it was the lowest rated Nitro ever. Throughout the late summer and early fall of 1999, in an attempt to boost the show's declining ratings, WCW organized a competition to find a new member of the Nitro Girls . Over
WWE brand extension - Misplaced Pages Continue
3104-465: The Intercontinental Championship in July and August 2002, respectively, deactivating both championships. The issue of specialty championships being exclusive to one brand was partially corrected in September 2002. When SmackDown! general manager Stephanie McMahon announced that Undisputed Champion Brock Lesnar signed a deal to exclusively appear on SmackDown! , Raw general manager Eric Bischoff introduced
3201-824: The NXT United Kingdom Championship, the NXT UK Women's Championship, and the NXT UK Tag Team Championship were retired and unified into their respective NXT counterparts after the NXT UK brand went on hiatus (which will relaunch in 2023 as NXT Europe). The NXT UK Heritage Cup was not retired and after months of inactivity, it was transferred to NXT in April 2023 and renamed the NXT Heritage Cup. The 24/7 Championship
3298-645: The Raw brand, moving to a feud with reigning WWE Tag Team Champions of SmackDown, brothers Carlito and Primo Colon . The teams fought several non-title and title bouts for their respective brands' tag team championships before the two fought in a winner-take-all title unification lumberjack match at WrestleMania 25 . Carlito and Primo would go on to win the contest, forming the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship. The tag team championships remained separate titles, but were defended collectively as
3395-443: The September 11 edition, but was replaced by Lex Luger, who issued a challenge to Hogan on the debut show. Vader would never perform on Nitro , and embarked on a WWF career in January 1996. The advent of Nitro brought with it a television ratings rivalry with the WWF's Monday Night Raw , known to wrestling fans as the " Monday Night War ". Throughout this period, Nitro would grow in popularity and eventually surpass Raw in
3492-881: The Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions, although both titles retained their individual lineages; Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn would then win the tag titles at WrestleMania 39 ; One year later, the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship would finally split at WrestleMania XL in a Six-Pack Ladder Match with A-Town Down Under winning the SmackDown Tag Team Championships and Awesome Truth winning the Raw Tag Team Championships, both of these titles would eventually renamed as
3589-599: The Unified WWE Tag Team Championship until the then-anonymous general manager of Raw announced that the World Tag Team Championship would be retired in favor of continuing the WWE Tag Team Championship, which received a new, single set of belts. On February 16, 2010, the ECW Championship was deactivated along with the ECW brand. On September 19, 2010, at Night of Champions , the Women's Championship
3686-402: The United States at the time), through separate buyouts that included the employees (on and off-air talent) from both companies. The sales had left the WWF as the only major professional wrestling promotion in the world with international television distribution (until the national expansion of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in 2004 and much later, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in 2019 on
3783-615: The WWE Women's Championship and the WWE Tag Team Championship were renamed as the Raw Women's Championship and the Raw Tag Team Championship, respectively. With this, each brand had a world championship , a secondary championship , a tag team championship , and a women's championship . Since Raw became the exclusive home of WWE's revived cruiserweight division, they also created a new WWE Cruiserweight Championship . Beginning November 29, 2016, in addition to Raw ,
3880-520: The WWE roster between two brands also intended to split the pay-per-view (also known as premium live event from 2022) offerings, which began with Bad Blood in June 2003. The original idea had the "major" pay-per-view events at the time (Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and WrestleMania) would contain the only instances where wrestlers from different brands would interact with each other, and even among
3977-481: The WWF Women's title belt with her and threw it in a trash can on the December 18, 1995 episode of Nitro (the third week that Nitro started before the top of the hour), and the title itself would become inactive for the next three years. Many cite this incident as one of the causes of the infamous Montreal Screwjob . This infamous event would be parodied by WCW on a 2000 episode of Nitro , when Scott Hall threw
WWE brand extension - Misplaced Pages Continue
4074-410: The WWF, as they preferred the traditional method of wrestling over long skits, screwjobs, and risque innuendo that were widely popular among WWF audiences. Nitro would be reduced to two hours in January 2000, returning the program to an 8-10 p.m. timeslot, with the first hour running unopposed and the second hour competing with the first hour of Raw . Eric Bischoff would be brought back to Nitro and
4171-666: The World Heavyweight Championship became exclusive to Raw. In June 2023, Reigns received a new belt design that represent the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, he would then finally drop the title to Cody Rhodes at Night 2 of WrestleMania XL on April 7, 2024. Although mostly regarded as a WWE concept, brand extensions have also occurred in other professional wrestling promotions. In the 1990s, then-President of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) Eric Bischoff proposed
4268-673: The World Heavyweight Championship was unified with the WWE Championship to become the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. The title retained the lineage of the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship was retired. The name was reverted to WWE Championship on June 27, 2016. At WrestleMania 32 on April 3, 2016, the Divas Championship was retired and then replaced with a brand-new WWE Women's Championship . After five years,
4365-399: The brand extension twice. The first brand split occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the ongoing second began in 2016. WWE currently promotes three brands. The two main brands, referred to as the main roster, are Raw and SmackDown . NXT , WWE's third brand, was launched in 2010 and has served as WWE's developmental territory since 2012. The first brand split began in March 2002, following
4462-511: The commercial breaks of The New Adventures of Robin Hood , which premiered that night after Nitro . This resulted in the premiere episode of Robin Hood receiving high ratings due to WCW fans being lured in to watch the show for the Hogan/Giant match. On the May 24, 1999 broadcast Bret Hart eulogized his brother Owen who was killed in an in-ring accident at the WWF pay-per-view event Over
4559-449: The company no longer had from the former promotions. The first two brands established were Raw and SmackDown, named after the respective weekly shows, Raw and SmackDown . ECW —a revival of the former promotion—served as the third brand from 2006 to 2010. The first brand extension then ended on August 29, 2011. A relaunch of the brand extension as part " The New Era " went into effect on July 19, 2016. As before, Raw and SmackDown were
4656-418: The company promoted two ECW reunion shows for ECW alumni , entitled ECW One Night Stand in 2005 and in 2006 . On May 25, 2006, WWE announced a launch of a new brand, ECW, a revival of the former 1990s promotion. The new brand debuted on Sci Fi on June 13, 2006, with its final episode on February 16, 2010, on the rebranded Syfy. The ECW brand was dissolved and its show was replaced the following week with
4753-577: The company serves as a touring theatre troupe , as well as event promotion body for its own events. Most promotions are self-contained, organized around one or more championships and do not acknowledge or recognize the legitimacy of other promotions' titles unless they share a working agreement. Governing bodies, such as the CyberFight , United Wrestling Network , WWNLive , Allied Independent Wrestling Federations , Union of European Wrestling Alliances, Pro Wrestling International and, previously,
4850-474: The company with a group of investors. However, although Bischoff's offer had been accepted, recently appointed Turner Broadcasting executive Jamie Kellner announced shortly after his arrival that Nitro and all WCW programming was immediately canceled on both TNT and TBS Superstation. Bischoff's group then withdrew their deal, as it was contingent on keeping WCW programming on some outlet. Instead, WCW's trademarks and certain assets (such as its video library and
4947-428: The company's acquisition of talent from the former World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotions, and after the conclusion of The Invasion storyline. WWE's roster had doubled in size, and the company no longer had a major competitor in the professional wrestling industry. The brand extension was enacted to alleviate the issues of an overcrowded roster and to imitate competition
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#17327879385985044-581: The contracts of 24 wrestlers), though not the company itself (which existed as a Time Warner-owned legal entity under the name Universal Wrestling Corporation until late 2017), were bought by Vince McMahon 's WWF (now WWE ), its long-time competitor. Around the time of the cancellation, WCW was preparing to make its yearly trip to Panama City, Florida for spring break . Since the premiere of Nitro , WCW had gone to Club La Vela or South Padre Island every March to try to gain favor with adolescent and young adult viewers who might not otherwise be tuning into
5141-472: The course of eight weeks, 300 women took part in the competition; two women who successfully passed the regional auditions were subject to Internet voting by home viewers. Eight women were selected to participate in the final round of the competition, which was held on the November 8, 1999 episode of Nitro . Stacy Keibler was declared the winner of the competition after receiving the most internet votes among
5238-513: The crowd and appeared in vignettes throughout the show, including one where he terminated WCW's Jeff Jarrett on air due to bad blood the two had in the past. The show was unique in that all five of WCW's major championships (excluding the WCW Hardcore Championship ) were defended that night and in six of the seven matches contested on the show, the faces won. (Traditionally WCW was seen as the promotion where heels were often
5335-465: The crowd noise is also removed on most episodes and pay-per-views. Beginning in July 2007, WWE Classics on Demand began deleting content from episodes of Nitro , as matches and some references to Chris Benoit are removed. Benoit is sometimes shown in segments where he is not the main issue of the segment. This was in light of the controversy surrounding the deaths of Benoit and his family on June 24 of that year. In April 2009, WWE Classics went back to
5432-627: The draft. With the WWE Championship being defended exclusively on SmackDown, Raw commissioner Stephanie McMahon and general manager Mick Foley introduced the WWE Universal Championship to be Raw's world title. As SmackDown was lacking a tag team championship and a women's championship, SmackDown commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan introduced the SmackDown Tag Team Championship and SmackDown Women's Championship . Subsequently,
5529-538: The early 1990s as Cactus Jack, won the WWF Championship as Mankind on a pre-taped episode of Raw . Nitro announcer Tony Schiavone sarcastically commented on the match, which unexpectedly resulted in Nitro losing in the ratings battle when several hundred thousand viewers switched over to Raw to see the title change. That night's episode of Nitro would be notorious for the " Fingerpoke of Doom ", in which
5626-498: The eight finalists, and received a spot on the dance troupe along with a cash prize of $ 10,000. Since buying the WCW video library, WWE Home Video has included many Nitro matches and segments on some of their Superstar biography DVD sets. Episodes were also streamed on WWE Classics on Demand , as part of The Monday Night War feature. While the service did show episodes of Nitro , they are often edited. Some WCW entrance theme music tracks are replaced with stock WWE music. A lot of
5723-449: The exclusive home for the Tag Team Championship and the original Cruiserweight Championship . With several specialty championships being exclusive to one brand, numerous wrestlers were left with no title to fight for except for the Hardcore Championship , which although a property of SmackDown! after the draft, it was contested under different rules than the other championships—the European and Hardcore championships were later unified with
5820-409: The final episode of Nitro . (The WWF scrapped the WCW Hardcore Championship, as it was officially retired immediately following the final Nitro despite no one holding it since Meng departed for the WWF in early 2001, and the WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team Championship for undisclosed reasons; Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio were the last champions and McMahon was only able to sign Kidman to a contract at
5917-414: The first episode was broadcast), Nitro also organized special broadcasts from the Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando in 1996; aired annual Spring Break-Out episodes from Panama City Beach, Florida or South Padre Island, Texas starting in March 1997; and filmed some episodes in Australia and the United Kingdom during the Fall of 2000. As of June 30, 2023, all episodes are available for streaming on
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#17327879385986014-458: The first episodes that aired in September 1995. These shows alternate with the current Nitro airings (December 1997 and onwards). A 3-disc DVD entitled The Very Best of WCW Monday Nitro was produced and released by WWE on June 7, 2011. The set is narrated by former three time WCW champion Diamond Dallas Page and highlights some of the biggest matches and moments in the history of WCW Monday Nitro . The sequel, The Best of WCW Monday Nitro Vol. 2
6111-507: The following year, the event became about brand supremacy; in addition to the traditional Survivor Series matches, each champion of the Raw brand faces their counterpart of the SmackDown brand in non-title matches (e.g., the Universal Champion against the WWE Champion). Following the 2019 WWE Superstar Shake-up , a Wild Card Rule was introduced. Interbrand competition became much more frequent, with interbrand matches occurring weekly on Raw and SmackDown Live , as well as at pay-per-views. With
6208-403: The following year. The title video for the debut episode of Nitro featured multiple shots of Big Van Vader (one of four wrestlers featured, along with Hulk Hogan, Sting and Macho Man Randy Savage ), who parted ways with WCW following a backstage altercation with Paul Orndorff . Absent from the first episode, he had been scheduled to face Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship on
6305-414: The four major pay-per-views, in which both brands were involved. The only exception to this were the two months leading up to WrestleMania 33 in order to build the feuds for that event, and the two months (including the month of WrestleMania) following WrestleMania to begin new feuds for each brand. For example, February 2017 only had a SmackDown pay-per-view while March only had one for Raw. WrestleMania 33
6402-524: The four shows only the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania would have wrestlers from different brands competing against each other. Wrestlers, as a result, appeared only in two-thirds of the shows in a given year, and thus appeared in fewer shows compared to before the brand extension. With single-brand PPVs in place, WWE was able to add more pay-per-view events to their offerings, such as Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday , New Year's Revolution , December to Dismember , and The Great American Bash . Eventually, WWE abandoned
6499-404: The idea was put in motion to separate the WWF's two shows into distinct brands while both being under the WWF banner. One year prior, the original plan was to create a new WCW (which would be an independent entity in the storylines but would be under the WWF's auspices in reality), and for this new WCW to take over Raw and use the show to recreate its WCW counterpart, WCW Monday Nitro . (The WWF
6596-401: The launch of the WWE Network service in 2014 and its subsequent merger of the American service with Peacock in 2021, each brand have its own set of PPVs/PLEs each month with the main roster events (Raw and SmackDown) being dual-branded while NXT kept its brand-exclusive premium live events regardless the brand extension is in operation or not (from 2014 to 2021, NXT promoted its specials under
6693-472: The match). Sting won using his finishing move, the Scorpion Deathlock. After the match, the two competitors stood in the middle of the ring and embraced to show respect for one another. In a closing segment, simulcast between both Nitro and Raw , Vince addressed the audience in Cleveland and gloated about the purchase, stating that he wanted Turner to personally deliver the sale contract to him so he could sign it at WrestleMania X-Seven that weekend. However,
6790-422: The more adult-oriented " Attitude Era ". In April 1998, Raw beat Nitro in the ratings for the first time in almost two years. The shows would continue to trade ratings wins back and forth until November 1998 when Raw pulled ahead of Nitro for good. Besides broadcasting from various arenas and locations across the United States and Canada , such as Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota (from which
6887-405: The practice of single-brand pay-per-view events following WrestleMania 23 . December to Dismember and New Year's Revolution were cancelled following the announcement. With the reintroduction of the brand extension in 2016, single-branded pay-per-view events returned, and seven more pay-per-view events were added in 2017 so that each brand could have their own pay-per-view each month, in addition to
6984-482: The program. It was announced that the upcoming March 26, 2001, episode of Nitro from Panama City (which was actually held at the nearby Boardwalk Beach Resort) was to be the finale and the show was dubbed "The Night of Champions." The show began with McMahon appearing via satellite from Gund Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, the site of that Monday's Raw is War broadcast on TNN . McMahon announced his purchase of WCW to
7081-501: The ratings for 83 consecutive weeks. Since Nitro was live, the show was seen as far less predictable than its WWF counterpart. Initially only sixty minutes in length (as was Raw at the time), Nitro was expanded to two hours following the 1996 NBA Playoffs ( Raw would later extend to two hours in February 1997). In January 1998, the show was extended to three hours. At its peak, the rivalry resulted in performers on either show trading verbal insults and challenges. In retaliation for
7178-443: The ratings with the World Wrestling Federation 's (WWF; now WWE) Monday Night Raw . Although comparable to Raw in popularity from the beginning, Nitro began to dominate in ratings, based largely on the strength of the New World Order (nWo), a rebellious group of wrestlers that wanted to take over WCW. Beginning in June 1996, Nitro beat Raw in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks, forcing WWF owner Vince McMahon to usher in
7275-406: The reality series, WWE NXT . On May 25, 2016, it was announced that beginning July 19, SmackDown would broadcast live on Tuesday nights, as opposed to being taped on Tuesdays and airing on Thursdays as it was previously, receiving a unique roster and set of writers compared to Raw , thus restoring the brand extension. The draft took place on the live premiere episode of SmackDown to determine
7372-439: The reestablishment of the brand extension in 2016; the first interbrand match that occurred after the brand extension went into full effect was at SummerSlam on August 21, 2016, where Raw's Brock Lesnar defeated SmackDown's Randy Orton . The next large interbrand matches occurred at Survivor Series on November 20, 2016, featuring traditional Survivor Series elimination tag team matches between Raw and SmackDown, and beginning
7469-593: The rosters between both brands. On the July 11 episode of Raw , Vince McMahon named Shane McMahon the (on-screen) commissioner for SmackDown and Stephanie McMahon the commissioner for Raw; both chose a General Manager for their respective shows. On the July 18 episode of Raw , Stephanie McMahon chose Mick Foley as the Raw General Manager, and Shane McMahon chose Daniel Bryan as the SmackDown General Manager. Due to Raw being
7566-480: The second brand extension began, WWE revived the cruiserweight division . The cruiserweight wrestlers were originally exclusive to Raw but had a supplementary show called 205 Live that premiered that November on the WWE Network . Following WrestleMania 34 in April 2018, the 205 Live brand was split from Raw, with the promotion's cruiserweight wrestlers becoming exclusive to the new brand. Additionally, in December 2016, WWE announced that they would be establishing
7663-488: The speech was interrupted by Vince's son Shane McMahon , who announced (in kayfabe) from Nitro that he had already signed the sale contract himself, and that the WCW would continue to compete against the WWF. The twist came as part of the set up of their match at WrestleMania X-Seven, and of what would later become WWF's " Invasion " storyline. In addition to the tape library and other intellectual properties, WWF also purchased several contracts of WCW talent, keeping many of
7760-472: The stable would ultimately split into several warring factions within itself, while most WCW-branded wrestlers would eventually become neutral. As Raw began to overtake Nitro in the ratings in 1998 thanks to the WWF's Attitude Era programming, WCW was frequently criticized for several faults, including an inability to create new stars while over-relying on established stars to support ratings. On January 4, 1999 Mick Foley , who had wrestled for WCW during
7857-452: The teammates being on separate brands. Bobby Lashley was also notable for his interbrand action, as he was involved in a storyline with Donald Trump against WWE Chairman Vince McMahon, which carried over from Raw through WrestleMania 23 to ECW. The brief return of Saturday Night's Main Event to NBC also led to more interaction between the brands. Interbrand competition returned with
7954-429: The time.) "The Night of Champions" was the penultimate WCW broadcast, prior to the final episode of WorldWide on the weekend of March 31–April 1, 2001. WCW Monday Nitro was the last professional wrestling program to air on TNT until the first episode of AEW Dynamite on October 2, 2019. When then- WWF Women's Champion Alundra Blayze signed with WCW in 1995 (going back to her old name of "Madusa"), she brought
8051-433: The top stars as opposed to the WWF, where faces were often the top stars. Shawn Stasiak was the only heel to emerge victorious on the final episode of Nitro .) In addition, various WCW wrestlers were interviewed giving their honest, out-of-character responses to the selling of WCW. The co-main event of the evening was WCW World Heavyweight Champion Scott Steiner taking on WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Booker T in
8148-411: The two primary brands, with NXT serving as a developmental brand and briefly as part of the main roster. Other brands during the second brand extension included NXT UK , a United Kingdom -based subsidiary of NXT which was active from 2016 to 2022 (scheduled to be relaunched as NXT Europe in 2024), and 205 Live —a brand that specialized in cruiserweight wrestlers (with all wrestlers for the brand having
8245-508: The younger stars. Four of WCW's championships found their way into the WWF; in addition to Booker T carrying both the WCW Championship (as it was renamed) and United States Championship with him into the WWF, McMahon also signed then- WCW Cruiserweight Champion Shane Helms and then-WCW Tag Team Champions Chuck Palumbo and Sean O'Haire to contracts. Palumbo and O'Haire would defeat Team Canada ( Mike Awesome and Lance Storm ) on
8342-456: Was also highlighted by the return of Lex Luger to WCW after having spent the previous two plus years wrestling for the WWF, where he had been one of the promotion's top stars. Luger had just wrestled a match for the WWF the previous evening; the match was his final contractual obligation with the company, and Luger signed with WCW the morning of his appearance. The event prefigured the similar defections of WWF wrestlers Scott Hall and Kevin Nash
8439-562: Was also retired in November 2022. At WrestleMania 38 in April 2022, SmackDown's Universal Champion Roman Reigns defeated Raw's WWE Champion Brock Lesnar to win both titles and become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, although both titles retained their individual lineages. Similarly in May 2022, SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) defeated Raw Tag Team Champions RK-Bro ( Randy Orton and Riddle ) to win both titles and become
8536-498: Was initially kept to a minimum, with wrestlers from all brands competing together only at pay-per-view events. However, from 2003 to 2007, all pay-per-view events became brand exclusive, leaving the "big four" pay-per-views ( WrestleMania , SummerSlam , Survivor Series , and Royal Rumble ) as the only interbrand shows. Starting in late 2006, in an attempt to add more star power to the shows, interbrand matches became more common. Most notably, MNM and The Hardy Boyz reformed, despite
8633-708: Was later introduced for NXT UK called the NXT UK Heritage Cup with its own special stipulations. Subsequently, the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship was created for NXT with the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship becoming only shared between Raw and SmackDown. In January 2022, the NXT Cruiserweight Championship was retired after it was unified with the NXT North American Championship. In September 2022,
8730-468: Was on April 2 and Raw had its first post-WrestleMania pay-per-view on April 30, while only SmackDown had a pay-per-view in May. This also happened in 2018, however, for 2018, WWE announced that following WrestleMania 34, brand-exclusive PPVs would be discontinued, abandoning the single-brand practice for a second time. The 2018 Elimination Chamber and Fastlane events were the last two brand-exclusive pay-per-views for Raw and SmackDown, respectively. Since
8827-452: Was originally planned for 2023 but was delayed due to WWE's acquisition by Endeavor , which also owns Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), with WWE and UFC merging to form TKO Group Holdings . The merger was finalized in September 2023. In September 2022 the brand dropped the 2.0 moniker, reverting to the NXT name, with a revised version of the logo featuring white lettering in the 2.0 font outlined in black and gold. Interbrand competition
8924-667: Was paired with Russo to " reboot " WCW on April 10, 2000. None of these changes were able to help recover Nitro ' s ratings and Bischoff eventually left WCW in July 2000 after an incident involving Hogan and Russo at the Bash at the Beach event. Russo would later suffer a severe concussion after being speared through a cage by Goldberg, later leaving WCW on extended leave to recover. Further declines from late 2000 would see WCW search for new ownership beginning in early 2001. In an attempt to save WCW and Nitro , Bischoff attempted to purchase
9021-575: Was revived in 2006 as a third brand, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship was reactivated as the brand's only championship. Over the course of the first brand extension, these championships switched between brands, usually due to the result of the annual draft. The Cruiserweight title, however, was the only championship to never switch brands, staying on SmackDown! from 2002 until the championship's retirement on September 28, 2007. In October 2007, SmackDown! and ECW began
9118-529: Was still pre-recorded at the time while Nitro was broadcast live. To emphasize that only Nitro was live, Rude had a full beard on the Raw broadcast but only a mustache on Nitro . The January 13, 1997 episode of Nitro ended with the first two minutes of the Hollywood Hogan vs. The Giant main event. Before the show went off the air, commentator Tony Schiavone announced the match was to continue during
9215-540: Was to separate the two shows themselves: previously, wrestlers appeared on both Raw and SmackDown , but with this extension, wrestlers would be exclusive to only one show. Only the Undisputed WWF Champion and the WWF Women's Champion were exempt and could appear on both shows. This would change as both championships were later assigned to a brand. The brand extension began on March 25, 2002, with
9312-407: Was unable to find a television time slot for WCW due to its exclusivity deal with Viacom .) This experiment was first made on July 2, 2001, when the final twenty minutes of Raw was given to WCW programming, in which the Raw crew was largely replaced (with Scott Hudson and Arn Anderson doing commentary, as well as a major stage overhaul) to present a match between Buff Bagwell and Booker T for
9409-679: Was unified with the Divas Championship, retiring the Women's Championship in the process; the Divas Championship was briefly referred to as the Unified WWE Divas Championship. The first brand extension would then end a year later and all champions could appear on both shows. In 2012, NXT became a developmental brand for WWE and they introduced the NXT Championship that year, followed by the NXT Women's Championship and NXT Tag Team Championship in 2013. On December 15, 2013, at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs ,
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