#2. Hope is true: Backstage reason behind Big E's WWE title win
Big E's WWE title win was moved from the Draft to the latest episode of RAW. While the timing seemed right, that wasn't the original plan. The decision to put the title on the New Day member reportedly stemmed from some pressure that the company has faced recently.
According to Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men podcast, there was pressure towards WWE from the TV networks to treat RAW and SmackDown as equal shows. Due to the mammoth five-year, $1 billion deal from FOX for the Blue brand, the promotion has turned it into the "A-Show".
However, the title win was reportedly moved up to give the Red brand a big moment:
"Mat Men’s Andrew Zarian said there is pressure on WWE from the networks to treat Raw and SmackDown as equal shows. Big E winning the WWE championship was originally planned for his move to Raw during the upcoming draft, but it was moved up in order to give Raw something equally big after SmackDown had such a huge show at MSG. It was not a response to AEW Dynamite beating Raw in the key demo rating."
We hope this is true because it's important to put both brands on equal footing. WWE is usually quite blatant with which brand they prefer, and it isn't surprising that they were pressured to give RAW a much-needed big moment.