It looks like WWE is abandoning the idea of brand-specific pay-per-views as the first PPV following WrestleMania, Backlash, will also be a combined show.

Fans who purchased a ticket for the Backlash pay-per-view which will take place at the Prudential Center in New Jersey received an e-mail with the announcement of the change. “This will now be a combined Pay Per View with RAW and SMACKDOWN Superstars,” the e-mail said.

There are rumors that WWE will go back to its regular PPVs with Superstars from both brands participating while keeping Raw and Smackdown as separate brands. Originally, there were only four combined PPVs – Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series – and then for this year it was announced that Money In The Bank would also be a dual-brand PPV.

While the brand split is somewhat working in terms of television, data from pay-per-views – including ticket sales and Network views – might be a different story. Perhaps the biggest task of going back to combined pay-per-views every month would be how many matches they can cram in a three – or sometimes four – hour show to showcase everyone.

Each brand-specific pay-per-view has around seven or eight matches on the card so that would mean cutting half of the matches from each brand to present a combined show with that total number of matches.