Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how WWE Monday Night Raw is being booked and the fact that it appears that Raw is being given preferential treatment over the WWE Smackdown brand. While it is true that the most recent run of television shows and pay-per-view cards and favored Raw over Smackdown, it is still worth a closer look to determine which brand, in its current state, is actually the superior brand. So, let's compare the two WWE brands:

World Champion: The Raw World Champion is Chris Benoit, a man who had been overlooked several times in the past for title runs and should, to be honest, be on his second or third title reign by now. The Smackdown World Champion is Eddie Guerrero and for a description of Eddie, see Chris Benoit. In comparing the two, it seems that a mistake was made. Smackdown is the "wrestling" show, but they have the better mic man while Raw, the "sports entertainment" show, has the all business ring tactician as champion. It seems that Benoit should actually be on SD, but since Eddie Guerrero is a great showman who can also perform in the ring, it wouldn't matter what type of wrestling promotion he were in, he would still be a charismatic figure. As far as which man is the better champion, not considering the condemners to the title, Benoit is the better wrestler. Unfortunately, professional wrestling has very little to do with wrestling and more to do with performance in and out of the ring, and that is where Eddie excels. He can perform equally in and out of the ring, as evidenced by his recent fainting spell at the end of a six-man match with the Dudleys, Bradshaw, Mysterio & RVD. Lastly, Eddie and his feuds are the central stories on SD while Benoit's title defenses are forced to take a back seat to the ongoing Triple H-Shawn Michaels war. Edge: Smackdown

Secondary Champion: John Cena is the Smackdown United States Champion. I know this because he is an electric figure who is being featured as the number two good-guy on the show and his title gets mentioned every time his name is mentioned. Randy Orton is the Raw Intercontinental Champion and I know this because I had to research it to be sure. His association with Evolution and their singular pursuit of helping Tripe H regain the World tile is burying Randy Orton. Triple H's war with HBK is not only overshadowing the World Champion, it is also making the IC title less significant each time Orton finds himself caught in a tag match with the other members of Evolution. True, Orton gets his solo spots each week, and I understand that it is really hard to drum up any support for his title right now because neither Orton nor Cena has any spine-tingling opposition for their straps, but does anyone really care about him when Randy Orton gets in the ring by himself and grabs a microphone? I think not. It has been said that the public is tiring of Cena's act, but love him or hate him; they would choose Cena over Orton any day. Edge: Smackdown

Other Champions: Raw has Victoria, the women's champion and Benoit & Edge, the tag champions. SD has Chavo Guerrero, Sr. as their Cruiserweight champion and Rico & Charlie Haas as their tag champions. Victoria is a credible champion and her list of contenders (Trish, Lita, Molly, Jazz, Gail Kim, Nidia) would stand up against any era of women's wrestling. Even Madusa, one of the greatest woman wrestlers in the last 40 years would struggle against this field. Benoit & Edge won the titles from the Evolution team of Ric Flair & Batista and several different combinations of Evolution members have tried to relieve the World Champion & his partner of the straps but were unsuccessful. Unfortunately for Edge & Benoit, once they are finished with Evolution, they will have only La Resistance to deal with, which will not help their reign gain any credibility. Even though Rico & Haas was a mongrel team that was thrown together just as a joke, they gained the SD titles and will have to deal with the likes of former champions the Dudleys, the Bashams, Scotty & Rikishi & perhaps the dark horse team in the federation, Billy Gunn & Hardcore Holly, who were brought together because of their mutual hatred for the newly obtained Booker T. On the other hand, though the cruiserweight division has several quality contenders, the title itself was made into a joke by awarding the title to Jacqueline and then having Chavo, Sr. win the belt from his son. The Cruiserweight title is no longer worth pursuing and I still prefer the Raw tag champions to the SD champions and except for the Dudleys, though I am a fan of all of the contenders, there is still not much there. Edge: Raw

Top Talent: Other than Evolution, Raw boasts Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, Christian, Matt Hardy, Rhino & Tajiri. SD counters with Booker T, RVD, Mysterio & the Undertaker. The SD roster is loaded with tag team specialists and cruiserweights while Raw has a much bigger and stronger roster. Determining which one is better depends on what you prefer. If you are an action fan and prefer technical excellence, then you turn to SD. If you like promos and brawls, then you watch Raw. The biggest difference is in which group sells the most tickets and unfortunately for this business, that is the bottom line. Where that is concerned, Raw is always going to have it over SD, just because Triple H and HBK attract a lot of attention and the other big names will want to be where they are. Edge: Raw

Missing Talent: Among the names listed on the Raw roster, currently out of action for some reason or another are The Rock and Mick Foley while SD counters with the Big Show as their top missing talent. Kurt Angle should be on this list, but he is still heard from each week on SD broadcasts as the acting General Manager. When the Big Show returns, he will be put into the mix, probably given a shot at whomever is holding the world title at the time, and the he will fade back into being the unbeatable monster with no true place on the show. On the other hand, Rocky & Mick will always find themselves involved in main events against the top guys on Raw. The two of them are stars and they will only face stars or up-and-coming stars for as long as they decide to. As for stars that the brands have lost altogether, SD parted ways with Brock Lesnar, which was a huge blow to their roster, but not as huge as the loss of Goldberg & Steve Austin was to Raw. Edge: Raw

Announcers: Jim Ross & Jerry Lawler are the current standard by which all other announce teams will be measured in the near future. The team of Tazz & Michael Cole is the team that is currently being measured. The WWE wants Tazz to be more like Lawler, a heel announcer who seldom actually watches the matches, cheers for the bad-guys and believes that the bad-guy is always right and is always the victim of some dishonesty whenever the good-guy wins. Tazz prefers to be an announcer who calls the match as he sees it and gives credit where it is due, even though he operates under heel sensibilities, similar to Bobby Heenan & Jesse Ventura. Jim Ross is not the best pure play-by-play man in the game right now as that distinction belongs, in my opinion, to Joey Styles, but the gap between 1 & 2 is not that great and when he is allowed to call a match without discussing other happenings within the federation, because of his extensive background in the sport, Ross has no equal. Michael Cole will get there, perhaps in 20 years, but by then, he probably will have been replaced with someone else. Edge: Raw

Secondary Show: Sunday Night Heat versus Velocity. Because of the constant appearances on Raw by Jonathon Coachman, he is becoming a star in his own right, and by combining him with Al Snow, who has one of the best senses of humor in the business, they are becoming a pretty good announce team. WWE Experience could make Todd Grisham a star, if the show were worth watching. Bill DeMott has the makings of a good announcer, but so should be wrestling, but then, so should Al Snow. Snow & Coach are funny and Josh Mathews & Bill are more serious, but their inexperience shows at times. As for the shows, they are showcases for the secondary talent. Guys like Steven Richards & Paul London earn their money on these shows. While Heat only gets 3 weeks of action per month, the other week being used as a PPV pre-game show, Velocity always has new matches.

Fans of new material will watch Velocity, especially now that it airs at a time when most fans are awake. As for the PPV pre-game, by the time that the PPV arrives, there is nothing about the matches and the storylines that anyone who has been paying attention does not know, thus running the show in this fashion is probably unnecessary. For those who do not know, Heat is the Raw show and Velocity is the SD show. Edge: Smackdown

Analysis: In these seven categories, it would appear that the Raw brand is superior to the Smackdown brand 4-3, but by giving extra weight to the World Champion, this does not seem to be the case. If you were to apply a double point for the World Champion category, then the challenge would end in a dead heat. The Raw writing is significantly better, and there are various theories as to why, from Triple H being Vince's son-in-law to Vince viewing SD as his own personal WCW, but if the SD story lines were as good as Raw's, then their show would produce a more pleasing product week to week. Raw is the better brand, but only by a small margin.

by Eric Jenkins (Wrestling: In Your Face)..