WWE Brand Extension

The World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (WWF/E) Brand Extension was a draft first used in 2002 by WWE with the purpose of dividing WWE Superstars into two brands, RAW and SmackDown!. In 2006 ECW was added to the draft.

History

RAW and SmackDown!

Background

After buying World Championship Wrestling (WCW), its business opponent through the 1990s, in March 2001, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) wanted to find a way to split itself into two separate brands, because of the numbers of Superstars that it had gotten as part of WCW's purchase. On March 18, 2002, Linda McMahon announced the "brand extension" in which the company would be split into two distinct brands.

In terms of storyline, Ric Flair had become co-owner of the WWF following Survivor Series 2001 where Shane and Stephanie McMahon sold their stocks to Flair in order to buy WCW and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). Vince McMahon did not like having to share his creation with Flair and looked for a way to stop their partnership. After entering a feud with The Undertaker, Flair sought a match with him at WrestleMania X8. However, the WWF Board of Directors would only allow the match if Flair were to give all control of the WWF to McMahon. Flair agreed, however, the Board also reserved the right to review the ownership status of the WWF following WrestleMania. Their decision was to split the entire WWF roster into two separate brands, with Vince McMahon in control of the SmackDown! brand and Ric Flair in control of the RAW brand. A draft was started the following week on RAW. Each owner would get a total of thirty picks. The brand extension officially began on April 1, 2002. By having two brands in place, the WWF was able to increase the number of live events held each year from 200 to 350.

Superstar selections

The 2002 World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Brand Extension Draft took place at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania on March 25, 2002. The first half of the draft was televised live on TNN for two hours, on WWE's flagship program, Raw. The second half, or the supplemental draft, was conducted over the internet on WWF's official website, WWF.com. There were thirty draft picks, with sixty superstars drafted overall by co-owners of the WWF, Ric Flair and Vince McMahon, onto their respective brands, RAW and SmackDown!. For the televised half of the draft, ten brand selections were manually made by Flair and McMahon. The supplemental draft was however conducted as a draft lottery, with each brand receiving twenty random draft selections.

On the March 18, 2002 episode of RAW, Vince McMahon won a coin toss to determine who would receive the first draft selection.

Overall Pick #	Brand (To)	Brand Pick #	Superstar/Diva	Notes
01 1	SmackDown!	01 1	The Rock
02 2	RAW	01 1	The Undertaker
03 3	SmackDown!	02 2	Kurt Angle
04 4	RAW	02 2	n.W.o (Kevin Nash, Scott Hall & X-Pac)
05 5	SmackDown!	03 3	Chris Benoit	Drafted while recovering from neck surgery. Benoit made his WWE return on the Raw brand instead.
06 6	RAW	03 3	Kane
07 7	SmackDown!	04 4	"Hollywood" Hulk Hogan
08 8	RAW	04 4	Rob Van Dam	When drafted, Van Dam was the then-WWF Intercontinental Champion, which made the Intercontinental Championship RAW exclusive.
09 9	SmackDown!	05 5	Billy and Chuck	Billy and Chuck were the then WWF Tag Team Champions, which made the Tag Team Championships SmackDown! exclusive.
10 10	RAW	05 5	Booker T
11 11	SmackDown!	06 6	Edge
12 12	RAW	06 6	The Big Show
13 13	SmackDown!	07 7	Rikishi
14 14	RAW	07 7	Bubba Ray Dudley
15 15	SmackDown!	08 8	D-Von Dudley
16 16	RAW	08 8	Brock Lesnar
17 17	SmackDown!	09 9	Mark Henry
18 18	RAW	09 9	William Regal	When drafted, Regal was the then-WWF European Champion, which made the European Championship RAW exclusive.
19 19	SmackDown!	10 10	Maven	When drafted, Maven was the then-WWF Hardcore Champion, which made the Hardcore Championship SmackDown! exclusive.
20 20	RAW	10 10	Lita
21 21	SmackDown!	11 11	Billy Kidman
22 22	RAW	11 11	Bradshaw
23 23	SmackDown!	12 12	Tajiri
24 24	RAW	12 12	Steven Richards
25 25	SmackDown!	13 13	Chris Jericho
26 26	RAW	13 13	Matt Hardy
27 27	SmackDown!	14 14	Ivory
28 28	RAW	14 14	Raven
29 29	SmackDown!	15 15	Albert
30 30	RAW	15 15	Jeff Hardy
31 31	SmackDown!	16 16	The Hurricane
32 32	RAW	16 16	Mr.Perfect
33 33	SmackDown!	17 17	Al Snow
34 34	RAW	17 17	Spike Dudley
35 35	SmackDown!	18 18	Lance Storm
36 36	RAW	18 18	D-Lo Brown
37 37	SmackDown!	19 19	Diamond Dallas Page
38 38	RAW	19 19	Shawn Stasiak
39 39	SmackDown!	20 20	Torrie Wilson
40 40	RAW	20 20	Terri
41 41	SmackDown!	21 21	Scotty 2 Hotty
42 42	RAW	21 21	Jacqueline
43 43	SmackDown!	22 22	Stacy Keibler
44 44	RAW	22 22	Goldust
45 45	SmackDown!	23 23	Christian
46 46	RAW	23 23	Trish Stratus
47 47	SmackDown!	24 24	Test
48 48	RAW	24 24	Justin Credible
49 49	SmackDown!	25 25	Faarooq
50 50	RAW	25 25	Big Bossman
51 51	SmackDown!	26 26	Tazz
52 52	RAW	26 26	Tommy Dreamer
53 53	SmackDown!	27 27	Hardcore Holly
54 54	RAW	27 27	Crash Holly
55 55	SmackDown!	28 28	Val Venis
56 56	RAW	28 28	Mighty Molly
57 57	SmackDown!	29 29	Perry Saturn

Note:

• Picks #1-20 were made on live television on TNN
• Picks #21 -58 were conducted over WWF.com.

Aftermath

On the June 10, 2002 edition of Raw, McMahon became the only owner of World Wrestling Entertainment when he defeated Flair in a No Holds Barred match.

ECW

Background

After World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) bought all of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 2003, the company began releasing DVDs showing the original ECW. Soon afterwards, the company promoted two ECW reunion shows for ECW Alumni entitled, ECW One Night Stand in 2005 and in 2006.

On May 26, 2006, WWE announced a new brand, ECW, a revival of the 1990s show. The new brand debuted on its current network, the SCI FI Channel on June 13 2006.

Superstar selections

The 2006 World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Brand Extension Draft took place from the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington on May 29, 2006, where ECW representative, Paul Heyman, drafted two superstars, one from SmackDown! and one from RAW onto the new ECW brand.

Pick #	Brand (To)	Superstar/Diva	Brand (From)	Notes
01 1	ECW	Rob Van Dam	RAW
02 2	ECW	Kurt Angle	SmackDown!

Aftermath

In late 2007, SmackDown! and ECW superstars began to appear on both shows as part of a (kayfabe) deal between ECW General Manager Armando Estrada and SmackDown General Manager Vickie Guerrero.

Impact

Interbrand competition

Interbrand competition was kept at a minimum, with superstars from all brands competing together only at pay-per-view events. However, in 2003, all pay per view events became brand exclusive, leaving the "big four" pay-per-views (WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and the 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 Hardys reformed, despite the fact that the teammates were on separate brands. Bobby Lashley is also notable for his interbrand action, who was involved in a storyline with the WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon. The return of Saturday Night's Main Event to NBC has also lead to more interaction between the brands.

Starting in April 2007 with Backlash, all pay-per-views now feature all the brands as they originally were in 2002.

Pay-per-views

The separation of the WWE roster between two brands also intended to split the pay-per-view 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 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 2/3 of the shows. Eventually, WWE abandoned 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.

Championships

Initially, the WWE Undisputed Championship and WWE Women's Championship were available to both brands. The other championships were exclusive to the brand the champion was a part of. With several specialty championships being exclusive to one brand, numerous wrestlers were left with no title to fight for.

This issue was solved in September 2002 when the Undisputed Championship became the WWE Championship again and was moved to SmackDown! while Eric Bischoff created the World Heavyweight Championship for RAW. Shortly thereafter, SmackDown! created their own Tag Team Championship, revived the United States Championship, and became the exclusive home of the Cruiserweight Championship. Meanwhile RAW became the exclusive brand for WWE's original World Tag Team Championship, the Intercontinental Championship, and the Women's Championship. The end result was each brand having four championships. When ECW was revived in 2006, the ECW Championship was re-established and is that brand's world title.

Other pages

• WWE Draft Lottery
• WWE Roster