WWE brand extension
The brand extension, also referred to as the brand split, is the separation of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE's roster of wrestlers 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 the brand extension twice. The first brand split occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the ongoing second began in 2016.
WWE currently promotes four 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. A fourth brand, Evolve, launched in March 2025 as a sister brand to NXT and features trainees from the WWE Performance Center and independent wrestlers recruited for the WWE Independent Development program.
The first brand split began in March 2002, following the company's acquisition of talent from the former World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling 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 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 the August 29, 2011 episode of Raw afer which was the show was promoted under the title "Raw Supershow" until Raw 1000 on July 23, 2012 with the Raw Supershow logo featuring elements of SmackDown's logo to emphasize the end of the first brand extension.
A relaunch of the brand extension as part "The New Era" went into effect on July 19, 2016. As before, Raw and SmackDown were 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, and 205 Live—a brand that specialized in cruiserweight wrestlers and was active from 2016 to 2022.
History
2002 split
In 2001, the Monday Night War, the rivalry between the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling ended with the WWF emerging victorious. The WWF would acquire the majority of assets of WCW, and later Extreme Championship Wrestling , through separate buyouts that included the employees from both companies. The sales had left the WWF as the only major professional wrestling promotion in the world with international television distribution in 2004 and much later, All Elite Wrestling.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, 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, and for this new WCW to take over Raw and use the show to recreate its WCW counterpart, WCW Monday Nitro. 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 to present a match between Buff Bagwell and Booker T for 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 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 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. 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 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" onto each brand in a draft lottery.
2006 ECW introduction
After WWE bought all the assets of Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2003, the company began releasing DVDs promoting 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 25, 2006, WWE announced a launch of a new brand, ECW, a revival of the former 1990s promotion. The new brand debuted on Syfy 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 the reality series, WWE NXT.
2016 split
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 the rosters between both brands. On the July 11 episode of Raw, Vince McMahon named Shane McMahon the 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 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 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 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 2022, it was announced that NXT UK would be relaunched as NXT Europe and feature wrestlers from all of Europe. According to Shawn Michaels, two additional NXT sub-brands would also be launched: NXT Mexico and NXT Japan, which will also feature wrestlers from Mexico and Japan respectively. NXT Europe was originally planned for 2023 but was delayed due to WWE's acquisition by Endeavor, which also owns Ultimate Fighting Championship, 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.
2025 Evolve relaunch
In January 2025, it was reported that WWE were planning to revive Evolve as a brand. WWE acquired the assets of Evolve in July 2020. The company trademarked the name "Evolve" on January 30, 2025, with the first tapings set to be held at the WWE Performance Center on February 7, replacing WWE NXT Level Up, which was cancelled in December 2024. During the Royal Rumble on February 1, WWE announced that WWE Evolve would premiere on Tubi on March 5. The brand would feature up and coming wrestlers from the WWE Performance Center and the WWE Independent Development program with the goal for the WWE Evolve wrestlers is to make it to WWE's developmental brand, NXT, and eventually to the main roster on Raw or SmackDown.Programming effects
Interbrand competition
Interbrand competition 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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.