Imagine if someone told you to watch a show but then also told you the episodes were commonly below average. They also told you would be only a few episodes you would enjoy, and the odds of their being an incredible show would be slim to none. It would be preposterous for someone to watch this show, never mind recommend it. That show right now is Monday Night Raw, a show that has no business being watched right now by anyone.
Frankly, WWE should be embarrassed at how poor its flagship show is. Its problems do not stem from a lack of talented wrestlers. It has some of the best ones today. It does not stem from a production problem. There are issues with how Kevin Dunn produces the show, though for the most part, the production is top-notch. It is able to do many creative things with its big-budgeted production. It is after all famous for its well-produced, well-formatted and well-edited video packages.
The problem stems with the booking.
For years, WWE’s Creative members have been a scapegoat for the problems in the company. People love to blame them, believing they are too unqualified and unskilled. In truth, they are doing what they are told to do. Vince McMahon is the only person that deserves the blame for the poor booking. The boss should get all the credit when his company does well and should take the heat when it does poorly.
Even if someone else is bad at his or her in WWE, it is still the boss’ fault. He hired them.
Certainly, McMahon will be known as the greatest promoter ever. How he turned a local territory into a global phenomenon speaks for itself. All geniuses, though, eventually lose their brilliance. It can be because of writer’s block, time passing them by and more; but – no matter what – all things will eventually deteriorate. It is the inevitabilities of life.
Culture today views time as more valuable than ever. TV shows are consequently producing fewer shows in a season and instead is adding more content in each episode. The want is less quantity, more quality.
That is why it is so flabbergasting that Raw remains a 3 hour show and is on 52 times a year. It was bad enough when Smackdown was an irrelevant show but now it is even worse now that it is a relevant show. People who watch both shows consume 5 hours of WWE content in two days. That is 5 episodes of a one-hour show, or 10 episodes of a half-hour show.
To make matters worse, Raw lacks the proper amount of content to fill time each week. The show devotes more time wasting time than anything else, which enervates and tires viewers and the audience. Even when something good happens, both the viewers and audience are too worn-out to care or react because of how emotionally draining the show is.
It is more draining seeing the same concepts persistently recycled. It is so apparent how little it cares about its midcard, putting little to no effort into defining its characters and giving them hackneyed material to work with. To keep mid-card feuds moving week to week, WWE follows the same patterns for every lower card feud. Normally, the wrestlers feuding wrestle one-another so many times prior to the upcoming PPV that few people are interested in seeing their PPV match.
McMahon said about a year ago that WWE does not have meaningless matches. I was confused by statement, seeing that Raw is filled with them. Most of its matches have little-to-no backstory; fail to tell an in-ring story, and lack ramifications or consequences. The majority also lack a sense of purpose or reason. Every wrestler – no matter where they rank on the pecking order – loses matches on Raw.
The WWE Champion Kevin Owens lost to Roman Reigns this week. Seth Rollins, the number-one contender this Sunday, went to a draw with Rusev, the US Champion. Raw’s booking is counterproductive. Its even-steven ways of booking makes the entire roster look like a bunch of losers.
Speaking of even-steven booking, its matches could not be more so. Most of them follow the same foreseeable formulation. The wrestlers are in autopilot for 2/3rds of it and then suddenly shove it into
second gear in the last 1/3rd of the match. They are not allowed to tell a story, either. They instead wrestle the by-the-book WWE homogenized style to a tee. The style is all sizzle, no substance. Flashy moves and sequences can be aesthetically pleasing, although there needs to be an underlining story behind the matches to create a sense of purpose.
Smackdown, on the other hand, has been developing characters and telling stories its matches. Miz wrestles as a cautious and opportunistic style, staying true to his lily-livered persona. On this week’s show, Jason Jordan had to find inner-strength to overcome The Usos due to the vulnerable position he was dealt, as his partner could not do much with an injured knee. But even with his admirable effort, the two vs. one disadvantage was too much for him to overcome.
It was good storytelling and made both teams look good: The Usos picked up a win while Jason Jordan displayed his courageousness.
Unlike Raw, Smackdown had matches with purpose, ramifications and storytelling this week. Every match on the show served its purpose. The Usos vs. American Alpha match did not just see who would be the
number-one contender would be; it also had a sense of purpose as the Usos cost American Alpha’s chance of being the number one contender at Backlash.
Smackdown created a mini-feud to add more layers and purpose to it. That is good booking. Miz meanwhile put his IC championship on the line against Dolph Ziggler and was another match that had purpose.
The new-fangled story with Miz and Ziggler is that Miz can only defeat Ziggler because he takes shortcuts. Miz defeated Ziggler to retain his title but needed to use (pepper?) spray to do so. That is how you continue a feud without resorting to cop-out booking. Dean Ambrose also defeated John Cena to receive a WWE Championship match Smackdown next week.
The match killed two birds with one stone. It was interesting because fans wanted to see who would get a title shot for next week while next week will be interesting because there will be a WWE title match on Smackdown.
Despite Smackdown’s weaker roster, the show is running circles around Raw. It is the superior show because of its booking. It is telling stories which progress week after week. It is creating compelling characters from the top to bottom of the card. It is providing fans with matches that have a sense of purpose and ramifications and that tells a story in the ring. Surely, Raw suffers from the additional hour. But it is no excuse. It has a stacked roster, thus there is no excuse for why so many characters lack motive and instead are aimless and directionless. There is no excuse of how futile most of the show is. There is no excuse for how perfunctory and paint-by-numbers its booking is.
Raw is a stagnant show that fails to develop on a regular basis and instead takes a shortcut anytime it can. Triple H turning on Seth Rollins in favor of Kevin Owens had the potential to be a compelling storyline. Three weeks and counting, though, we have learned nothing about Triple H’s motives while Seth Rollins has almost forgotten all about his teacher turning on him, and Roman Reigns does not even care HHH cost him the championship.
That sums up what is frustrating about Raw. It feels so out of its skin whenever it takes a rare leap of faith thus dives right back into its conservative shell. It also adulterates its few interesting storyline due to its inability to keep a storyline compelling for more than 2-to-3 weeks, quickly running out of material by the 4th week and then going back to rehashing tired concepts to keep a storyline “moving”.
Lastly, the show is so micromanaged to death. Everything feels overproduced and accordingly contrived.Wrestlers sound as if they are reading off cue cards, as they are too busy trying to remember their lines than add in emotion. The matches are based on wrestlers hitting all the spots needed versus adding liveliness into it. The way everything is set up from the backstage interviews to when the important segments happen (the top of the hour segments) feels too formulaic. It all sucks the emotion, passion and realism right out of the product and replaces it with an inorganic, manufactured and monotonous vibe.
Until Raw fixes its major problems, the show will continue to be a skippable show and lose more and more viewers.
