WWE Brands & Mr. Kennedy!

Eric Gargiulio of PhillyBurbs.com proposes the idea that WWE brand extension may be over with. On all of the shows, ECW, Raw and Smackdown, wrestlers from the other brands have been showing up, and matches amongst all brands have been a part of each show.

Gargiulio remarks:

SmackDown is moving to a new network in September. This could have something to do with it, but it still doesn’t make much sense. Are the WWE running out of superstars? Are the writers out of ideas? Why would CM Punk be on RAW and not his own show the next night? A lot of it just doesn’t make sense.

So maybe in fact there will be no more drafts or lines drawn between brands?

My best guess is that the wrestlers will continue to appear on all 3 shows in order to promote all of the shows together as well as upcoming PPV's, which feature all brands on them. For example, Raw this past Monday helped promote Tuesday's 100th ECW episode, in order to attract more attention. In the past it did seem that certain PPV's were exclusively Smackdown matches or Raw matches, but that has ended.

Now it seems every bit of TV time is precious to hype up all of the WWE wrestlers heading into these events, some of which are just 2-3 weeks apart. Sometimes wrestlers are worked into the other shows as they may be a better fit. I don't see the individual shows ending yet, but if ratings on Smackdown/ECW drop, those 2 could still merge together. As for CM Punk he is the current "Mr. Money in the Bank", and it seems he is teasing as to which title he will aim for, but hasn't hinted so much at the ECW title.

Gargiulio's article also notes that WWE is looking to open another brand in Mexico. Read more on Is the WWE brand extension over? at Phillyburbs.com.

The National Ledger has an interesting interview with Raw superstar Ken Anderson aka "Mr. Kennedy". Kennedy discusses how he came up with his name and character, which was partly credited to WWE/ECW's Paul Heyman.

In the interview Kennedy says:

"I learned pretty early on that the best characters are those that are just extensions of your personality. You take your own personality and you turn the volume all the way up. So I spent time really finding out who I was as a person and as a wrestler and what I could and could not do, and just really fine-tuning all that stuff," said Anderson from his home near Minneapolis, where he moved to because it was easier to get connecting flights to all the far-flung locations the WWE sets up shop, all over the world."

Kennedy also discusses just what it's like to work in WWE rings with guys like the Undertaker. Read more with Mr. Kennedy here at National Ledger.