5 ways for the WWE to improve Monday Night Raw
Monday Night Raw has been WWE’s flagship show since it debuted back in 1993, with the who’s who of professional wrestling having entertained the masses throughout Raw’s run so far. But now? Yeesh, talk about a tough watch.
Like any TV show, particularly those that have been around for so long, Raw has had its fair share of ups and downs, but right now fans are finding themselves stuck with a product that is as bad as its been in a long, long time. And that’s something that has not helped due to the fact that SmackDown is so often giving audiences some great pro wrestling action, and NXT is knocking it out of the park each and every week.
Worryingly for WWE higher-ups, the November 26 edition of Raw drew a wince-inducing 1.68 rating for an episode that many fans and journalists have labelled the worst Raw episode in the show’s 25-year history.
While we wait for this week’s rating to come out, it can at least be said that the December 3 Raw episode was an improvement on its predecessor in terms of quality – even if that’s not exactly saying much.
So, what to do with a problem like Monday Night Raw, huh? Here are five simple suggestions to try and jump-start the WWE’s red brand back in the right direction.
#5 Less Repetition
It’s one thing to repeat something that was at one point good, but to be repeating segments and matches that were dull and boring the first time around? Yeah, that’s just asking for trouble.
For the past month or so, it feels as if the Raw brand has been stuck on a repeat cycle of Elias butting heads with Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush, The Riott Squad beating down Natalya, Baron Corbin dominating the weekly show, Bayley and Sasha dishing out forehead-slapping putdowns, and Finn Balor smiling maniacally.
Lets face it, none of those things exactly make for must-see TV. But still, we keep seeing the same content regurgitated form week to week.
Sure, a weekly wrestling show is always going to feature some form of repetition due to the very nature of how feuds and rivalries work, yet the cycle we’re stuck in right now is one that nobody has asked for, nobody is entertained by, and nobody gives a damn about.
When the majority of your three-hour broadcast is constructed this way, it’s almost as if you're goading your viewers to change the channel, and given the current state of the Raw ratings, that’s exactly what many are indeed doing.