Lashley and MVP stuff in another, and so on. Some of that’s still here, but even the less successful acting, matches, and segments gain a little more gravity and actually fit into the narrative of the show because they all exist in the same place, are happening at the same time, and might interact.įor example, most normal Raws would’ve had the Street Profits and Viking Raiders existing in one segment, Christian and Randy Orton existing in another, Ric and Charlotte Flair exiting in another, the McIntyre and Truth vs.
So that makes divisions stop mattering, which makes championships stop mattering, which makes big events stop mattering, which snowballs and snowballs until nothing matters and you might as well be watching a screensaver for three hours every Monday night.
That makes the writing process easier, but it also somewhat sacrifices character consistency, continuity, and the rules of the universe because WWE Superstars aren’t “real,” not even in the context of the show itself. What was ostensibly “worldbuilding” was replaced by cycled, episodic stories that allowed the characters to change on a whim and be whatever the writer (or Vince McMahon himself, specifically) needed them to be. If you’re feuding with a guy and his friends, you only ever really run into or interact with that guy and his friends. That used to come standard with Monday night wrestling shows, but for the longest time WWE stories have existed independent of one another to a weird degree. I’m sure I missed some of the structural changes to how the show runs, but one of the most obvious is introducing multiple stories near the top of the show and having them progress as they weave together throughout the show. But the show appeared to be making a concerted effort to avoid being boring, and on a show where my most tired weekly talking point has become WHY WON’T THEY STOP DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER, “not boring” is a massive gain. Not all of it’s important and some of it doesn’t work, sure, that happens. In case you didn’t see the episode, there’s so much going on this week.
There are a few concerning aspects to the way this week’s Raw was put together - we’ll get to those in a bit - but I wanted to open this week by saying how much I liked a lot of the changes, and think they’ll help the show tremendously if they remain consistent and constructive. It’s not like Raw’s been blowing us away with high quality episodes, but it felt like a scary proposition given that recent episodes of Smackdown have featured a wrestler getting run over by a drunk driver, characters getting slimed like they’re on Nickelodeon, and both a massive jar of piss and “Dookie the Diaper Boy.” One of last week’s biggest WWE stories was the announcement that Paul Heyman was out as the Executive Director of Monday Night Raw, and that Raw and Smackdown’s creative teams were consolidating under Smackdown’s Bruce Prichard. Best: Make Brother Love, Not Raw Is War WWE