This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw was nowhere near the worst episode in history. However, it did have more than its fair share of moments that made me literally say out loud “WTF!?”
Fastlane is coming up this weekend. WrestleMania is right around the corner. This should be the best time of year where WWE Creative stops phoning it in and doing illogical things, and instead, tries its hardest to put forth the best product possible.
Instead, we got these five things that I can’t help but to rant about (and one I’ll save for its own article).
Rushing the Raw Tag Team Championship Scene
One of the most frustrating things about WWE over this past year has been this tendency to stretch things out well past their welcome, only to then rush things that had the ability to be drawn out longer. For whatever reason, this company has been ass-backwards, taking 10 weeks to tell a story, then cramming 4 more stories in over the course of 1 week, instead of 5 stories over 15 weeks spread out.
Why is it that the Raw Tag Team Championship situation has been a series of maybe a dozen or so matches between The New Day and The Hurt Business, only to go nowhere with it that entire time, switch over to Lucha House Party, and then go BAM NEW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS AND ALSO NEW CHALLENGERS FOR WRESTLEMANIA in the span of a few minutes?
I wasn’t a fan of this idea that Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin were arguing. It felt like a mistake every time and from the very start. But now, it’s either gone nowhere (which I also hate, because WWE claims patience is rewarded, then drops stories and just tells fans to move on and forgive and forget and give them the benefit of the doubt repeatedly) or, worse, the story is going to play out now as a B-plot.
I can see it going down. Cedric blames Shelton for losing the titles. We see another two or three matches against The New Day to drive that further into the ground and to keep Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston away from AJ Styles and Omos for the coming weeks.
Of course, they’ll then interfere in matches, anyway. We’ll also get AJ Styles against Woods and Kingston in singles matches.
Then, The Hurt Business either splits, loses a member, or is just relegated to background support for Bobby Lashley at WrestleMania and not in a match on their own.
I’m fine with The New Day against AJ Styles and Omos for WrestleMania, but I hate how WWE has gone about doing this and I don’t like thinking that The Hurt Business had to take a hit (that I doubt WWE will make up for) in order to move on.
Why not just make it a Triple Threat match where The Hurt Business go into Mania with the titles?
You Can’t Do That on Television
This feud between Braun Strowman and Shane McMahon is awful. We’re all in agreement, right?
On paper, I’m fine with Strowman tossing McMahon around in a No DQ match at WrestleMania that doesn’t go on too long. How to get to that point, though, has been garbage.
Don’t do the match at Fastlane. For a company that spits out “for the first time ever” as constantly as it does, you’d think they’d understand that rematches don’t come off as appealing, generally speaking, unless the first match is PHENOMENAL and people are begging for more.
Do you really think that’s going to happen here? I don’t, particularly based on what we’ve seen so far.
Last week, the big plan was to have Shane stutter and mumble. That was their hook. Awful.
This week, the big creative decision was to pour Nickelodeon slime on Braun. Oooooooh, there’s a moment for the Road to WrestleMania history books! 30 years from now, people will look back on the best builds for WrestleMania and point out Andre turning on Hogan, the Mega Powers exploding, Daniel Bryan’s Yes Movement, Shane pouring slime on Braun….
Slime doesn’t even have anything to do with Braun being stupid! This whole angle’s foundation is that Shane, for whatever reason, picked a fight with Strowman to call him dumb, out of nowhere. That’s bad enough as it is, but at least go with something remotely related to “you’re stupid” if you’re going in that direction!
Drew McIntyre’s No. 1 Contender Status
Have you ever heard of the proverb “don’t put the cart before the horse”?
Why does WWE shoot itself in the foot like this and skip over missed opportunities to upgrade matches and make them more important?
At the start of Raw, it was announced Drew McIntyre will fight Bobby Lashley for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. Straight-up. There you go. That’s the match.
Here’s a thought: Sheamus and McIntyre are fighting at Fastlane, which is this Sunday. This feud revolves around wanting the WWE Championship. Make that a No. 1 contender’s match!
“But Tony, everyone knows McIntyre would win that and fight Lashley.”
So? Everyone knows McIntyre is going to beat Sheamus this Sunday anyway. WWE didn’t avoid that. Sheamus even lost on Raw to Lashley, proving that there’s no chance he beats McIntyre, takes away his momentum, and somehow gets in the title hunt.
At least if it was still up in the air who would fight Lashley, there would be some people out there thinking “maybe the match at Fastlane ends in a draw and it becomes a Triple Threat match or something” whereas now, we all know Drew beats Sheamus to end that feud.
This stuff isn’t that hard to book! Come on!
The Women’s Tag Team Championship Scene is a Mess
Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler were supposed to fight Lana and Asuka at TLC. Instead, they dropped the titles to Asuka and Charlotte Flair.
Then, after a few weeks of crap, Asuka and Flair dropped the titles back to Jax and Baszler. IE, that month was pointless.
Lana returned. She and Naomi won a No. 1 contender’s match. WWE promptly said “Hold off on that, though.”
Meanwhile, the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament happened. Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez were eventually announced as earning a title shot.
That title shot happened. Adam Pearce screwed over Kai and Gonzalez. The big payoff for that? William Regal said “Well, I’ll make my own women’s tag titles, then!”
Kai and Gonzalez were given those belts. An hour later, they lost the titles.
Along the way, Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair got a title shot at Elimination Chamber, bypassing Naomi and Lana. Why? Because. That’s why.
Nothing of value happened there. So WWE decided “Well, screw it, let’s just do that again at Fastlane. That’s easier than thinking of something else.”
Jax is with Reginald, who has been hovering over Banks, despite being Carmella’s sommelier of all things, which is ridiculous enough as it is. The SmackDown women’s title has revolved more around the guy responsible for Carmella’s wine than anything else. Now, he’s Jax’s boyfriend of sorts.
Oh, but we don’t see him on Raw. Why not? Because. So even that doesn’t make sense.
Lana and Naomi randomly got their title match on a random episode of Raw just to get it out of the way.
Now, this week, they’re fighting Dana Brooke and Mandy Rose with the idea in mind that the winning team would be in line for a title shot. That’s it? 3 months of garbage has been building to this?!
Of course, Shayna is more concerned with Asuka, anyway, which brings me to another point here…
The Empress of Tomorrow…eh…next week…eh…next month…eh…
For almost an entire year, WWE has proved nearly every week that they do not care about Asuka as Raw women’s champion. Her reign has been entirely directionless and it remains true even now, so close to WrestleMania.
I’ve talked ad nauseam about this, so I won’t go deep into the whole “Lana vs. Nia Jax overshadowed Asuka’s title, then Charlotte Flair’s return overshadowed her, then…” deal. You should know it by now. But what I’ll say is that it boggles my mind that here, on the go-home show for Fastlane, absolutely nothing was announced for this Sunday’s event OR even hinted at for WrestleMania.
I keep repeating myself that this year should have been Rhea Ripley defeating Flair for the title to make up for the massive mistake of last year’s booking. Unfortunately, I keep also repeating myself that WWE seems to not be going in that direction and will most likely just do a Flair vs. Asuka WrestleMania rematch from years ago where Flair wins the title, again, while Rhea Ripley likely doesn’t pop up until after WrestleMania (or, at best, on the show for a stare down).
Asuka hasn’t defended the title in a decent manner since probably June or so, yet WWE refuses to just take the title off her and put it on someone they care more about.
The belts are props. We know this. If the title is on someone WWE doesn’t want to invest the time to think about storylines for, the titles get diminished. When the titles are on someone WWE cares about, it works out best.
Asuka has spent nearly a year being the champion and always being #2 behind some other aspect of the women’s division. Now, she can’t even drop her title properly!
Somehow, WWE expects you and I to care about whatever she does at WrestleMania just by telling us it will be big and important after spending 10 months showing that that isn’t the case, then going “uh…..Flair vs. Asuka. Good enough. Get excited.”
What are your thoughts on these topics? Keep the discussion going in the comments below!
