Watching Raw last Monday was nothing short of boring. The matches were mediocre at best, the promos
left a lot to be desired and overall the show left a bad taste in my
mouth. Having watched WWE programming
for about a decade now, I know not every show will be a home run. I just hope that there will be at least one
thing worth watching each week. Sadly,
this week I got more entertainment from reading Chris Jericho’s Undisputed:
How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps (an excellent
book by the way) than from watching Raw and that is just unacceptable. Due to being bored out of my mind, it was
very easy to pick out a lot of the problems that have been plaguing Raw for the
past few months. Instead of running down
the biggest developments of the past week, I thought for this week’s edition of
the Silver Report that I would highlight the three biggest problems that are
holding Monday Night Raw and the WWE product back from being as good as it
possibly could be. There are plenty more
problems that plague this company such as backstage politics and the inability
to make main event caliber talent, but these three are the most visible in the
product at this point in time.
John Cena
There are a great number of polarizing opinions on John
Cena. Personally, I am past hating the
Face of the WWE. I respect Cena’s
ability in the ring, but his character is becoming like a broken record. He has done the same carefree, head in the
clouds, funny guy shtick night-in and night-out for over five years now. Cena rarely shows any concern about the
opponents he faces as he just makes fun of them and belittles them. These actions have gotten so out of control
that they are starting to damage the product.
When Cena does not take his opponents seriously, the fans do not believe
said opponents have a chance of beating Cena.
This mentality kills fans’ excitement towards Cena’s matches and damages
how fans perceive Cena’s opponents. There
is no doubt that John Cena is the biggest draw in the WWE, but the company has
done everything there is to do with Cena as face that fans including this
writer want to see some drastic changes in his character, hopefully a heel turn. While I personally will not hold my breath
for a John Cena heel turn, there needs to be some sort of change to Cena’s
character. He has to get more serious
because his promo work outside of his feuds with Punk and Rock is simply
atrocious and his attitude towards his opponents is doing more damage to the
overall product than good.
Burying the Mid-Card
Champions
There was a time a few years back when the mid-card championships
meant something. A time when the United
States and Intercontinental Titles were more than just props; they were
stepping stones on the way to the major WWE and World Heavyweight
Championships. Oh, how drastically the
times have changed. Nowadays, winning
either the United States or Intercontinental Championship seals the champion’s
fate as a jobber for the upper mid-card to main event level talent for their
entire title reign. Seeing these
champions lose on live television every week damages the prestige of the
championships and the credibility of the champions. Eventually, fans stop believing that the
champion deserves to even hold the title or that the championship means
anything. WWE seems to be puzzled about how
it seems next to impossible to create stars like The Rock or Steve Austin in
this day and age. The fact of the matter
is that continually feeding their up-and-coming stars including the United
States and Intercontinental Champions to the likes of Sheamus, Randy Orton,
Ryback and John Cena does not allow the fans to get behind the younger
talent. They just see these younger
wrestlers and champions as being incapable of competing on the same level as
their upper level talent. WWE needs to learn
soon that nobody is going to get behind a champion that loses each and every
week.
Three Hour Runtime
When Raw went three hours to celebrate the 1000th
episode of the WWE’s flagship program, many people thought that going three
hours would severely hurt the product.
For the first month, things were fine.
Raw was very entertaining as the WWE was giving more time for matches
and bigger angles. Once summer turned to
fall, the novelty of a three hour Monday Night Raw every week quickly wore
off. Raw became a marathon to watch as
the WWE added more filler to the show than there was ever needed. With three hours of Raw and close to five
hours of more WWE programming on every week, the WWE has too much programming for
the current roster to fill. So a lot of
times, fans are left watching the same matches on a number of shows throughout
the week. Three hour Raws use to be special,
but now they are nothing more than the norm.
It is easy to see due to the three hour runtime that the quality of the
show and the WWE product has dropped.
Going back to the two hour format will not immediately solve this
problem; the WWE needs to find a happy medium.
A possible solution is that the WWE keeps the three hour format, but
make the first hour of Raw a pre-show, exclusive to WWE.com, that builds to two
hour main program on TV. You can keep
all the filler, but regulate most of it to the pre-show rather than weighing
down a main program. Personally, I believe
that the WWE can take the problem with the current three hour format and make
it work if and only if they just take a step back and retool it.
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