Weird.
That’s the vibes that I received coming off the heels of this past Monday’s edition of Monday Night RAW.
Weird.
The post-WrestleMania fallout edition of Monday Night RAW is typically your biggest RAW of the year. It is a show where new stars make names for themselves, stars out for extended period of times come back, and new rivalries rise from the ashes. We had some of that on RAW this last week, but if you watched the show from start to finish, I am sure you can tell that something was off from the moment Triple H kicked the show off.
The boisterous energy that infected SoFi Stadium for two consecutive nights at WrestleMania might as well have been silenced to a whisper on RAW. We kicked off the show with still active Chief Operating Officer, Triple H, kicking off the RAW crowd with the generic touting of WrestleMania’s success and thanking the fans for making the show what it was. He would also notably proclaim, “We’re not going anywhere” stemming from Endeavor’s acquisition of WWE. All of that is well and good, but as the three hours of Monday Night RAW transpired, there seemed to be a shift in the atmosphere that suggested WWE would go back to the old guard. And sure enough, the worst fears of many were confirmed.
Reports have surfaced that Vince McMahon had his hands all over the script of Monday Night RAW, with multiple re-writes, last-minute changes and even entire segments cut frustrating the talent backstage. There is actually a video that made the rounds on Twitter that showed Seth Rollins during a commercial break speaking with This same report suggests that the women in particular were frustrated because there was apparently supposed to be two different triple threat matches which was eventually changed to just one tag team match. Bayley was apparently supposed to accompany Damage CTRL ringside, but she was scrapped as well, which doesn’t bode well considering the cryptic hints regarding her future.
It was also suggested in this same report that stars have been mulling their future options in a Vince McMahon-run WWE operation. Apparently, two stars that are near the top of the card have considered requesting their release while others feel more content riding out the rest of their contracts. It should be noted that Drew McIntyre, one third of one of the greatest WrestleMania matches ever produced this past Sunday, has an expiring contract towards the end of this year, and early indications suggest that neither side are anywhere near close to a new deal. Under Vince McMahon’s leadership, notable names such as Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, Dakota Kai and Karrion Kross were a part of a mass exodus of talent over the last few years under Vince McMahon’s leadership before Triple H assumed full creative control.
Perhaps the most disturbing part about all of this is that Vince McMahon’s return has evidently lowered WWE morale to lows that had not been seen since he was last in any form of creative capacity in WWE. Then, consider that Triple H and Nick Khan held a talent meeting hours before the show went on the air to reaffirm to them that nothing would be changing, even in the midst of all of the hoopla in the background. This is a direct conflict to what Vince himself said in a recent interview, where he stated that he would not be “in the weeds” in WWE any longer and that he has atoned for his past mis-deeds.
Getting back to RAW itself, it was a painfully average edition at best. You had some good promo exchanges, such as the one between Cody and Roman. You had Bianca and Ripley tease a future encounter. That was cool. Matt Riddle returned. Cool. But this did not have a post-WrestleMania RAW feeling that made you anticipate what’s to come next week. The matches were largely apathetic, with the top matches being passable at best. There were also logical inconsistencies.
Take for example, the tag team number 1 contender’s match between Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez against Damage CTRL. These two teams were just in a WrestleMania fatal four way showcase. That match was won by Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler. Both of these teams lost that match. But Liv and Raquel wins a tag team match against one of the other losers in the match, beats them, and they get a title shot?
Then you have Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens defeating the Street Profits in a perfectly acceptable tag team match. The Street Profits are coming off a big win for them at WrestleMania in what was a very hot fatal four way tag themselves. And already, you have Owens and Zayn defeat, probably, your best non-Uso tag team out there?
And finally, you have the remarkably baffling segment of Seth Rollins going out to the crowd to presumably gloat and inform us of what his new plans are now that he’s done with Logan Paul. But instead, he comes out, we get a commercial, and it’s just him leading the crowd in singing his song, and he leaves without saying a word. I know you have segments where superstars coming off big victories come out to the ring, say nothing, and leave because actions speak louder than words. But here’s the thing. Rollins spoke, he egged on the crowd, and he just left. The crowd was most certainly confused, as were we.
Perhaps the most consequential event on RAW was the genesis of a new feud. Brock Lesnar came out to presumably be Cody Rhodes’ tag team partner in what was originally billed to be a huge tag team match against Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa. Let us be real, though. Brock Lesnar in a tag team match on free television? Yeah, right. He F-5’s Cody and lays waste to him, as he seemingly serves as the next big mountain Cody will have to climb in order to get back to the world title picture. It was a good enough segment which makes sense in a good deal of ways. However, you can’t help but feel that this will once again give Roman Reigns nothing to do for the next few months as he pads his historic reign past the 1000 day benchmark. With no active world champion to appear on your premiere show week after week under the old guard, things can go from dull to graveyard on a dime.
The lasting image of Monday Night RAW was a stoic Brock Lesnar standing on top of the stage flipping the double bird at Cody. But in a practical sense, it might as well have been Vince McMahon flipping off the locker room and the WWE audience collectively. Unique matchups, overlooked stars getting opportunities to put on high quality matches on RAW, storylines that make sense and continuity have been staples of Triple H’s creative control in WWE. It does not always pan out, but on Monday Night, we were left with an all too familiar feeling. A feeling of dread, and that WWE television would go back to being the hamster on a wheel that it often was under the watchful eye of an 80 year old who should be more concerned with his pension than WWE television.
With contract statuses in limbo, collective morale decreasing by the hour and a whole bunch of other uncertainty behind the scenes, it is rather remarkable that coming off the heels of what I considered to be arguably the best produced WrestleMania in WWE history, we are left with more pessimism than optimism.
Triple H assured the WWE crowd that they would not be going anywhere. Sure, the stars will be there every week to perform. The set will look the same, the announcers will still be there, and it will still be called Monday Night RAW. But the real issue now is that Vince does not appear to be going anywhere. And if that’s the case, then the painfully below average showing of Monday Night RAW that we just saw may only be a prelude of things to come.
