WWE Raw vs. SmackDown: Analyzing Who Won the Week of November 28

The battle for brand supremacy returns after a two-week hiatus, just in time for SmackDown Live's final build to TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs and Raw's hyping of Roadblock: End of the Line.

With each show focusing on crafting stories and a card for its final pay-per-view event of 2016, the product was stronger than usual.

But which of the two brands emerged from the latest round touting the better overall show and why?

Find out with this look back at the week that was in WWE.

Why Raw?

The Monday flagship featured two outstanding wrestling matches, beginning with United States champion Roman Reigns vs. universal champion Kevin Owens.

Their match gave fans a taste of what they can expect at Roadblock. This one, won by Reigns, was slower and more methodical than the explosive bout at the Dec. 18 event is likely to be, but it still captivated the crowd.

From there, the audience was treated to a main event pitting Sasha Banks against Charlotte Flair in a Falls Count Anywhere match that, in a perfect world, would bring an end to their lengthy feud. The brutality dealt by those two women and the visual of Banks bending Charlotte backward as she trapped her in the Bank Statement in the middle of the WWE Universe helped elevate this past even their Hell in a Cell bout.

Elsewhere on the show, the Sami Zayn saga continued as he verbally lashed out at general manager Mick Foley, who again stopped a beatdown at the hands of Braun Strowman. Disgusted by his idol's descent into bureaucracy, Zayn walked away from Foley, setting up an emotional story for fans to invest in ahead of Roadblock on Dec. 18.

Why SmackDown?

The blue brand had a greater sense of urgency this week, as it provided fans with the final hype before Sunday's TLC pay-per-view.

Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles came face-to-face in an edition of The Ambrose Asylum that ended with the WWE world champion brutalizing James Ellsworth via a nasty Styles Clash off the ring steps. That angle effectively took the lovable loser out of the equation for Sunday's show and set up a scenario where the titleholder and his top contender have one last war to settle the score, something the feud desperately needed.

Luke Harper's skepticism of Randy Orton set up a situation where Bray Wyatt is enamored with his newest follower, almost to the point that he is ignoring the warnings of his most loyal minion. Losses by Harper to Kane are not helping the situation.

At some point, the RKO is going to take out Wyatt, and Harper is going to be left to pick up the pieces, perhaps creating a schism between former allies and a rivalry that will elevate Harper.

The Becky Lynch-Alexa Bliss angle, with the latter shoving the SmackDown women's champion through a table to promote their tables match at TLC, was another simple but strong vignette that did more to sell their battle than any of the more complex stories the company has attempted over the last year.

Winner

Raw will forever be remembered for the Banks-Charlotte war that capped it off, but this week's winner is SmackDown, a show that built more steadily and made segment mean something.

When watching any broadcast, be it The Walking Dead or Raw, viewers want to know that what they are watching is meaningful—that it will somehow play into the events of future shows. SmackDown offers that on a seemingly weekly basis, but more importantly, it did just that on Tuesday.

Raw, on the other hand, is hurt by its length to the point that, even when it delivers three angles or matches that spark intrigue, the rest of the show is just mediocre enough to harm it in these head-to-head comparisons.

Yes, Monday's show was good. Very good, even. But the inconsistency cost it a victory.

Scorecard

SmackDown: 8, Raw: 7

Note: Prior, missing weeks not included in final scorecard. For completion's sake, Raw won both the Nov. 14 and 21 weeks.