Welcome to another issue of WWMD and this week we look at the plight of Monday Night Raw and how it could be fixed. Before we get underway I want to do a cheap plug – as of next week I’ll be appearing weekly in Brand Warfare here at SLTDWrestling and shortly WWMD is going twice weekly too! Exciting times ahead! So, with that out of the way, lets fix Monday Night Raw
Get rid of Steph. Or Mick. Or both.
One of the refreshing aspects of the draft was the return of Mick Foley as an authority figure. I loved him in his commissioner role in the early 2000s and I hoped that magic would return. However, it hasn’t. I’m really confused about what the purpose of Foley is – logically speaking all decisions would go through Stephanie McMahon, so what is the point of him being on Raw? On the other side of things, how often do you see both Daniel Bryan and/or Shane McMahon on SmackDown? This week you didn’t really see either of them and it worked, it was refreshing just to see the focus on the wrestlers on the show and let them do the talking in the ring. On the topic of matches….
Decent length matches, consistently
I hate to compare the shows and timings available for each, but it’s painful. SmackDown this week had a grand total of 3 matches over 2 hours but those matches went for around 40-50 minutes, allowing stories to be told in the ring. Look at Raw, there was nowhere near amount that develop time for stories or characters and 3 hours to play with. Hell, the main character on Raw who has had any character development recently is James Ellsworth. The easiest way for a wrestler to connect is by doing their business in a match – heel turns, face turns, tag team splits are all do-able in the ring, during a match, in front of the fans. Let my people wrestle!
Use Braun Strowman and Nia Jax in a big way
Yes, we get it, Braun and Nia are going to be pushed soon in a big way after driving through jobber after jobber after jobber. The question is, how? Jax has a clear path to the Women’s Title. I’d be more than happy for her to interfere in a Women’s title match and be physically dominant with any and all female wrestlers. It could easily be that Charlotte, Bayley and Sasha Banks have to join together to stop her, before Jax finally gets a title match at Hell in a Cell and is victorious. Whereas for Strowman, I don’t know where he would fit in to any picture at the moment. Universal Title? No way. US Title? A better chance than Universal, but still highly doubtful. Raw Tag Team Championship? Again, no – who would he team with? The thing is we know about Jax, her character, her persona, her drive, but what do we know about Strowman? Very little.
Put the Cruiserweights on show, front and centre
Not all fans who go to live events watched the Cruiserweight Classic and that is one mistake. However, the second mistake is that WWE aren’t showing the Cruiserweight Classic spotlight at all on Raw. More fans are watching NXT than they have been before and this shows when someone makes the jump from NXT to Raw or SmackDown – the crowd already knows about them and welcomes them like a long lost friend. WWE needs to spotlight the Cruiserweights so the crowd knows about them so they can get behind them and not chant through the match.
No celebrity hosts / guest hosts / random people appearing
This makes me fume. Seriously, hugely fuming. I don’t see the point in random people coming to Raw – it doesn’t do anything for the wrestlers, doesn’t do anything for ratings and nothing for the image of WWE. Guest Hosts take the role of an authority figure, so what happens with Mick and Steph? Celebrities getting in the ring only makes other wrestlers look weaker. There are only a few exceptions to this, but seriously if they don’t know how to bump then keep them out of the ring.
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Like what you’ve read? Disagree? Comment below or find me on Twitter @maruwe22! Next time out we’ll look at Nia Jax and how she could be booked to be the female Brock Lesnar – no pressure!
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