Re-Writing Raw 11.30.15

For far too long now, Raw has been creatively stale and a chore to get through. The problems are many, and the majority of them have been discussed at length. That isn’t the aim of this new weekly feature. Instead, I will look at Raw each week and break down the subtle creative changes that could have been made to make the show better. The idea isn’t to completely change the product or fantasy book something drastically different, but to find more intriguing and entertaining ways of getting to WWE Creative’s desired ends.

Sheamus’ Championship Celebration with The New Day

The on-going issue of the opening promo has been discussed at length. I’m not necessarily against such an opening shtick, but keep it short. As entertaining as they are, the New Day was all over this show and I would have cut them entirely from this segment. Start the show with the Authority introducing the champ, go straight into the balloons, fireworks and confetti then have Reigns do his run-in. Scrap the taking the belt angle, because they resolved it immediately after the commercial anyway and it’s been done to death. Sheamus is just pissed at Reigns for interrupting the celebration and issues the challenge for tonight after scurrying up the aisle, and the Authority adds the “5:15” deal. You accomplish the exact same set up for the night in half the time.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Tyler Breeze with Summer Rae

The issues with this match were twofold; first, it didn’t feel remotely important, and second, 50/50 booking. Tyler’s record hasn’t been great since coming to the main roster. By cutting the opening promo short, you can have these guys make their entrances before the first commercial and have commentary hype this as a big Survivor Series rematch. You’ve also eliminated the Authority/Reigns backstage bit, so that’s an extra bit of time for these guys to make the match feel worth your time. As it was, it felt like they just went through the motions. If Ziggler has to be the guy that goes over here, at least it could’ve been in a longer match that gives Breeze a better showing, and maybe they would have been able to get the crowd a bit more involved.

MizTV with Rusev and Lana, and Rusev vs. Ryback

So this is where they hit the reset button on Rusev and Lana. I hate the whole MizTV set up; Rusev should want no part of such a segment but they accomplished what they needed to in a relatively short amount of time, and Rusev’s facials are great in these types of deals. I would have advertised the Rusev/Ryback match prior to this segment though, just so you don’t get such a “what the fuck,” reaction when Ryback interrupts. The match was nothing special and more about the post-match angle. But as events later in the night would show, there’s no plans to turn Rusev into a sympathetic babyface, so why do it at all? If that’s the way they decided to go, I’d have had Ryback show concern for Lana as well because, you know, he’s supposed to be the good guy, and then you have Rusev take him out and leave him laying because, you know, he’s supposed to be the bad guy. I’m all for shades of grey, but not at the expense of clear story telling.

The Dudley Boyz Call Out the Wyatts, Tommy Dreamer Returns

I don’t have much to quarrel about here. Bubba cuts a mean promo as always, and it’s nice to see someone actually pissed off about getting beaten up for a change. The Dreamer pop was nice, and a good surprise, and it’ll be interesting to see if anyone else climbs out of the wood work. Of course, you could be using such an angle to elevate someone new, but nostalgia in small doses is perfectly acceptable. Here’s the part I would change though. You have two great teams ready to go at it, tables set up in the ring, Singapore canes lying everywhere, you go to commercial, come back, and they’re wrestling a regular six-man tag match. Scrap the match all together, just have the big brawl, do a bunch of table teases, Wyatts take over and then run the same finish with Bubba getting the fluke shove on Bray through the table. The idea here was that the Wyatts were still the dominate force and the Dudleyz got lucky and that’s fine, but don’t tell me these two adversaries hate each other and then put on a normal wrestling match.

Alberto del Rio with Zeb Colter vs. Goldust

So officially, nobody is on board with the MexAmerica thing, but that’s what they’re running with. I will reiterate here, I’m not going to be using this column as a vehicle to completely re-write WWE storylines, but more an attempt to put a positive spin on things. Think of it as polishing a turd. That said, there’s not much you can change here. Goldust should be used predominantly as enhancement talent and your mid-card heel champion needs a win, so this was fine. Perhaps it would have been an idea to show Alberto del Rio in the back before the commercial prior to this match, talking to Sheamus or the Authority to foreshadow what would happen later. Other than that, I have no issues here.

The Usos vs. The Lucha Dragons

So you had the New Day on commentary here, making it really difficult to focus on the match. As it played out, it doesn’t matter, because the match went two minutes and ended in a double disqualification. Again, I have no real issue with this outside of the fact that the Dragons were crowned number one contender’s about six weeks ago, but it happened on SmackDown so it doesn’t count. The Usos then got caught up in the whole “5:15” deal, which played into the story of the night, so I’m pretty fine with everything here and the match at TLC should be great. And yes, they should add the Ladder match stipulation.

Sasha Banks with Team BAD vs. Brie Bella with Alicia Fox

Brie and Alicia have little to do while Nikki is out injured, so this was a perfectly acceptable match to book. The match was rather dull; Sasha worked the same rest hold for too long, and at no point did it look like the hold was locked in correctly. In terms of booking, the right woman went over, but another damn distraction finish. Team BAD took out Alicia on the floor, which was fine, it shows the team’s effectiveness as a unit. But then just let Sasha beat Brie clean as a sheet in the ring to show that Sasha is the one on the rise. Brie isn’t going to be doing anything notable anytime soon, so there is absolutely no need to protect her.

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte with Ric Flair

Much like the New Day earlier, Paige was a distraction on commentary and didn’t need to be there. Just have her sit quietly at ringside or watching from the back. And if you’re going to run the angle with Paige attempting to drive a wedge between Becky and Charlotte, take the segment from the Raw Pre-Show that nobody watches, and put it on the main show! The girls worked a decent little match here, and the crowd was getting into it, and then the finish from out of nowhere. In theory, I don’t mind the angle, but it has come from nothing. If you run the Becky/Paige segment, there’s at least a little set-up. Give the match extra minutes so you can play up a story whereby Charlotte finds it difficult to put Becky away, so she has to resort to feigning the leg injury instead of just doing it to be a dick. It’s really not that difficult. And scrap the post-match segment backstage. Not every angle has to play out in the space of two weeks. Maybe you can then hype that we’ll get an explanation from Charlotte next week. More intrigue; give the viewers a reason to come back.

WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns, the League of Nations and the 8-Man Tag Team Match

So I’m lumping all of this together for the simple fact that it should have been one long run-on segment at the end of the show. We already know we’re getting a screwy finish to the “5:15” angle, because we’re not fucking stupid, so don’t telegraph it even more by not putting your World Championship match anywhere other than the main event. The way the angle played out was perfectly OK, but as soon as you set up the League of Nations (and yes, it is a terrible name) and have the faces run out, you have Teddy Long arrive to make the impromptu 8-Man. The faces get the upperhand early on, then you have The New Day come out mid-match to announce their addition to the match and you have heat and intrigue heading into the break. Shave ten minutes off the duration of the tag match, because it shouldn’t take seven top tier guys that long to beat a team of four.

There are other changes you can make to tie-up all of your running angles here, too. I’d have already added the brief backstage bit earlier where del Rio talks to the Authority to make his inclusion make some sort of sense. Then you have your post-match beat down. Where’s Jack Swagger, where are the Lucha Dragons, and where is Ryback? These guys should have tried to make the save and fall to the numbers game before Reigns makes his finally rally and again succumbs. Also noticeable by his absence was Kevin Owens. I completely agree that Owens works better on his own and doesn’t need to be a part of this group, but maybe when it looks like Ambrose and co. are going to get the upperhand, Owens shows up to neutralise Ambrose and leave again, so the question is up in the air as to whether Owens is truly aligned with the Authority or not. What’s that, intrigue heading into next week? Surely not. And as I said, shave ten minutes or more off the match itself, and give that to the Becky/Charlotte match and maybe Tyler/Dolph as well. You can have your 30-minute tag match on the TLC go-home show, but it’ll be League of Nations/New Day/Owens vs. Reigns/Ambrose/Usos/Dragons/Ryback/Swagger. That’s a match you can promote for two weeks, and it’d tie up so much talent that everything else on that show would be getting tons of time to play out.

Final Thoughts: I think just a few subtle changes could have significantly improved this show. All I’ve really done is clean up a few schmozz finishes, shave a few minutes from the opening and closing segments to re-allocate elsewhere, and give your main event angle a little more set-up and intrigue. The show makes more sense when you at least pretend your going to close with the Sheamus/Reigns match, the one that’s been hyped for the duration of the show. It is appreciated when you give a show a night-long thread, but pay it off properly. By shuffling that around, you’d then have to split the two Divas matches, but just swap the Becky/Charlotte match with the Dudleyz/Wyatts deal and you’re done. Also, if you’re going to do two quick comedy skits, a) make sure they’re actually funny and b) don’t run them one after another! To quote Randy Orton, “STUPID!” You can cut the Stardust and Adam Rose bits and you have another two minutes to give to something worthwhile. So what have we learned? Clean finishes, longer matches with importance and stories behind them, and a hot sprint of a main event that establishes the dominance of your new top heels and provides something to build on next week. Simple, effective and far less infuriating, and it really wasn’t that difficult to put together. And it was all done without actually changing any of McMahonagement’s master plan.

Thanks for reading.

Daniel Wilcox is a lifelong fanatic of music, movies and professional wrestling and a writing enthusiast, both critically and creatively. Having contributed to 411Mania since 2006, Daniel is thankful for the platform 411 provides and for every reader who takes the time to indulge his opinions.

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