Shane McMahon, in his return, specifically asked for control of Monday Night RAW... not the entire WWE. Now, it could easily just be a case of WWE being like the rest of us and completely forgetting that SmackDown! exists, but what if the goal is, in fact, the return of the Brand Split?
I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm all for it. To me, the Brand Split will encourage three things.
1. Talent Exposure. By having less crossover between RAW and SmackDown, it might give opportunities to showcase more under-utilized talent. We've all said that the talent level in WWE is among the best its ever been, so we might get to see that. If there's only so many "Main Event" slots to go around, we might see more talent get pushed there.
2. Creative Consolidation. I do feel like the main criticism of the idea is that, "They can barely fill the time they have now, diluting it between two brands might make it worse." I kind of think the opposite is possible. It might be a case where by splitting up the creative minds between two brands, there might be a little bit more focus put towards a cohesive goal for each brand. Plus, it'll force things to be written for the aforementioned under-utilized talent.
3. Manufactured Competition. This is the big one for me. WWE really has no competition at this point. TNA, ROH, Lucha Underground... they're nowhere near the level of popularity it would take to make WWE step up their game. My solution is to bring back that rivalry between RAW and SmackDown. Make not only the wrestlers, but the creative team want to out-do the other brand. If you split the roster, you can easily build storylines around RAW vs. SmackDown again, it's a built-in rivalry. WWE has to have some sort of incentive to do better, so make it internal. RAW Creative vs. SmackDown Creative, out-do the other team.
Of course, these are just my personal thoughts, and it could easily backfire. But could it happen? Could we set up a Shane-run RAW against a Stephanie-controlled SmackDown?