Monday Night Raw, what HAS become of you! Years ago Monday Night Raw had been one of the best things about professional wrestling, but oh how the mighty have fallen. Over the past five years or so, Monday Night Raw has become a shell of its former self. It has become a slog just to sit through the 3-hour runtime every Monday Night. Fans have been left shaking their heads wondering how a show that was once the apex of wrestling program has become a joke amongst the wrestling world.
One of the main reasons that Raw has become a laughing stock is the run time of the show. Having a weekly television show go three hours is just too much. It is forcing the WWE to draw out angles over an entire show when a 10-15 minute segment can do. As fans, we don’t need to see segments lasting this long but with a 3 hour run time, there needs to be something to fill the space.
The three hours run time could be saved to a certain extent if the WWE were willing to push different wrestlers but that highlights another problem that is hurting Monday Night Raw. The WWE has consistently dropped the ball over the past few years when it comes time to pushing other wrestlers.
The WWE has had incredibly talented men/and women come through Raws ranks over the years but they have done nothing with them. Wrestlers like Ricochet, Jeff Hardy, Keith Lee, and Nikki Cross are on the Raw roster but are not being used. Instead of devoting the three hours to a handful of angles, WWE could bring these incredibly talented individuals on t.v and give them time to shine.
Instead, we get to see the same wrestlers in multiple segments throughout the show.
With the same wrestlers taking up multiple segments on the show it also shows another problem plaguing Monday Night Raw. With the same wrestlers doing multiple segments each week we are faced with the same old stuff every Monday night. The creativity shown by the writers with this leaves something to be desired. Every week is almost a paint by numbers show that anyone could hammer out in a few minutes. It gives us the impression that WWE doesn’t care much about the product and gives us no reason why we should be watching from week to week.
One final problem, yet not THE final problem, that Raw is experiencing is its lack of focus on other divisions within the company. Every week we are beaten over the head with the WWE Championship situation. The main title should be the focus of the show, of course, but when it is done at the expense of the other championships there is a problem. If Raw was serious about building better undercard stars it would spend more time on the secondary titles of the show.
Now the previous argument being said, the past few weeks it looks like Raw is starting to build a United States Championship division around Sheamus and the Tag Titles might be headed in the right direction.
It will remain to be seen if Raw will continue this ‘momentum’
Raw used to be a great show to watch and got the world excited to tune in every Monday night. Unfortunately, with the problems mentioned above Raw has been nose diving over the past few years. Here is hoping that WWE can right the course of their flagship program before things get past the point of no return.