The news of a WWE brand split has certainly been met with some mixed reviews and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is among the weary.
The WWE Hall of Famer recently commented on the news that the WWE will once again be splitting its roster into "RAW" and "SmackDown" stars, with one brand being controlled by Stephanie McMahon and the other being run by Shane McMahon.
Given the returning Superstars from injury and the influx of talent on the main roster from NXT as well as the struggle for power between the McMahons, a brand split has been rumored for months.
Once "SmackDown" goes live on Tuesday nights starting July 19, the brand extension will become official.
Austin made some valid points recently when discussing the upcoming draft, notably how the WWE may have a lot of talent, but that doesn't translate to depth. Even in our own mock draft, we learned that the high-caliber Superstars are few and far between.
The "Texas Rattlesnake" pointed out that Vince McMahon beamed about the "incredible depth" of the WWE roster in his quotes from the WWE's press release on the upcoming split and took aim at the comments.
"Okay, let's go back to the 'incredible depth' of the talent roster," Austin said on his podcast (via WrestlingInc). "I don't see incredible depth, it is a lot of bodies, a lot of people, and talented people, but I don't think you can say your roster's necessarily deep. But you do have a lot of players or people they're going to try out and we'll see how they do. Are they going to make the All-Star team by getting over or are they just going to be bodies that go out there and occupy time on the television screen?"
Austin also said that the WWE can't treat the revamped "SmackDown" like a minor league show and he hopes that the extension will at least make it a "hotter" program.
The Texas native concluded with the popular belief that the WWE World Heavyweight Champion should be on both shows amid rumors the company may bring in a second World Championship.
"I absolutely think that the world champion ought to travel back and forth [between 'RAW' and 'SmackDown']," Austin said."If the champion is on 'RAW', [Roman] Reigns, who has the championship, goes to 'SmackDown,' to me, that in and of itself creates something that I want to see."
