After the WWE Universe had looked at the rosters for both Raw and SmackDown, there was a lot of concern about Raw having a much stronger roster. The WWE Draft was designed to be that way. Raw had more picks, so the brand was able to get the United States Championship, the Women’s Championship, and the WWE Tag Team Championship. At WWE Summerslam , Raw will establish the WWE Universal Championship, which is going to serve as the brand’s world title.
On the other side of WWE, SmackDown was able to get Dean Ambrose’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship and the Intercontinental Championship from The Miz. However, SmackDown still has no Women’s title and no Tag Team Championship to speak of after the WWE brand extension. The expectation was that Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan would be introducing new titles to the brand sooner rather than later, but a new report is claiming that it’s going to be on the later side.
According to a report from CageSideSeats , WWE isn’t planning on introducing any new titles for SmackDown until after WWE Summerslam in a little under three weeks. The reason is that WWE officials don’t want the card of the PPV to be filled with matches for vacant titles, and they don’t want to force working new title bouts onto the WWE Summerslam card.
However, SmackDown will be establishing its own Women’s Championship, but it will not be called by the same name. While the current WWE Women’s title is red, SmackDown could just introduce a “blue” title for their women to compete over. There are likely to be some other ideas floating around, such as calling it the WWE Universal Women’s Championship.
Creating a title is more complicated than just creating a belt for a wrestler to wear to identify them as the champion and giving it a name. WWE officials also have to decide who will be the first title holder. If WWE is introducing a brand new Women’s title for SmackDown after WWE Summerslam , the most obvious choice for the honor would be Becky Lynch, based on the roster.
The truth is that getting a new championship over with the WWE Universe is going to be a lot easier if the first champion is a face. Aside from Natalya, Becky Lynch has the most experience on the roster and is without question the top female face for the brand right now. She’s the most likely choice, but WWE may choose to go with something less predictable for SmackDown.
WWE officials could still make the decision to have the WWE Tag Team Championship featured on both brands, which would create competition between Raw and SmackDown. Also, that would make a combined PPV like WWE Summerslammuch more exciting since titles could change brands every four months or so.
However, WWE officials are most likely going to establish a WWE Tag Team Championship for SmackDown. The most obvious choice to lead the charge would be American Alpha. Chad Gable and Jason Jordan have such a unique chemistry. It catapulted them through WWE’s developmental system and NXT very quickly once they began to tag together.
Before the WWE Draft and brand extension, American Alpha was expected to hold the NXT Tag Team Championships for a long time before they surprisingly dropped them to The Revival at NXT Takeover: The End. Most likely, WWE officials thought it was a better idea for Gable and Jordan to have their run as WWE Tag Team Champions on SmackDown instead.
It seems that WWE’s plans are to have SmackDown become a much more competitive brand after WWE Summerslam if there are to be at least two more championships coming to the show. Raw will also be establishing a new Cruiserweight Championship in the coming months, so there are going to be many WWE Championships to keep track of by the end of the year.
[Image via WWE.com]