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Ever since WrestleMania, Monday Night RAW has been underwhelming. RAW lost its excitement and unpredictability factor long ago, but it still has a certain edge to it. There was still an X-Factor to the show which made fans sit for 3 hours and watch it. But ever since Wrestlemania 34 happened, RAW has gone into a slump.
The degradation in quality is significant as the 9th July episode of RAW drew the lowest viewership in the show's history. The 9th July episode drew an average 2.47 million viewers, the first time the viewership has fallen below 2.5 million for RAW.
Although financially WWE is doing better than ever, its rapidly declining viewership indicates a sharp decline in its product's quality, and rightfully so. The quality of Monday Night RAW has been terrible as of late with wrestlers having no direction in their storylines, repeating stale angles over and over which makes the program plain boring.
This can spell disaster for WWE in the future and could result in the WWE Network losing a substantial amount of subscribers which might not sit well with their sponsors.
To prevent such a disaster, here are 5 ways WWE can rejuvenate its product and make RAW must-see TV again:
Important Note: I haven't included the Universal Champion returning to regular TV on the list as that situation gets talked about more than enough already.
#5 Creating A New Top Heel
At this point in time, Raw's main event scene has only baby-faces. Roman Reigns, Bobby Lashley and Braun Strowman all play baby-face characters. Brock Lesnar is the heel champion who never shows up, and the closest to a top heel is Kevin Owens. However, Kevin Owens gets treated as a joke. Being jobbed out to Strowman again and again, he is the least credible he has ever been in his career. Usually, a top outspoken heel who used to come out on top by any means necessary, Owen's poor booking has led to a loss of relevance.
Another heel act that is lost in the mid-card is Baron Corbin but he never got over with the crowd anyway. The major problem here however is not the lack of heels but the lack of crowd connection the faces have. Roman Reigns is a lost cause, let's ignore him. Bobby Lashley had a very disappointing starting program with Sami Zayn which diminished his credibility and Braun became too over with the crowd to stay a heel and was promptly turned face.
The closest to a successful heel act we have now is Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre but we can all agree their story has been quite underwhelming. Turning someone like Bobby Lashley or Roman Reigns heel seems like the best way to get the crowd invested in a main event caliber storyline. Another option would be turning a mid-carder like Finn Balor heel and pushing him to the main event scene, possibly making him the World Champion.
#4 Return of the Demon King
Finn Balor's 2016 debut on the main roster was perhaps the most anticipated NXT Call up and the most hyped debut in WWE history. The hype was followed up on when Balor beat Rollins at Summerslam to become the inaugural WWE Universal Champion.
That match was the first glimpse the WWE Universe had of the Demon King persona of Finn Balor in action. Much like in NXT, the Demon King had that special aura to him, which captivated the fans and was recipient to immense praise.
But thanks to an ill-timed injury, Balor would be ruled out of action for almost a year, returning after WrestleMania 33. It would still take 5 more months till the fans got to see the Demon King again as Balor defeated Bray Wyatt at Summerslam. Again, the match was on the receiving end of heavy praise. WWE would call on the Demon King again at TLC against Bray Wyatt. However this time the match spelled disaster as the match was billed as Sister Abigail vs Demon King. And Sister Abigail was Bray Wyatt in drags. But as luck would have it, Wyatt fell ill and was replaced with AJ Styles and the result was an incredible match between Demon Finn Balor and AJ Styles. Balor won the match and it received universal acclaim.
However, October 2017 would be the last we heard of the Demon King as ever since Finn has neither wrestled as nor mentioned his alter ego on TV. One of the most over acts in WWE was seemingly buried without any reason.
Imagine how incredible it would have been for Balor to challenge Brock Lesnar as the Demon instead of Roman Reigns. The Beast Incarnate vs The Demon King is something I would gladly pay to see. Even if not Lesnar, Finn should at least challenge Roman after he inevitably wins the Universal Title, resurrecting the Demon as he does so.
3 A new faction
Factions are cool. There is absolutely no doubt about it. Ask any old time wrestling fan what was their favorite part of wrestling back in their day. Their reply will probably be WCW and WWE's Monday Night Wars.
The TV ratings war was brought on by WCW with help from their superstar faction the New World Order. Hogan, Hall and Nash revolutionized the wrestling industry and injected something fresh into it.
Creation of the nWo sent a ripple effect around the world as every promotion started creating factions to base their shows around. WWE followed suit by creating the legendary D-Generation X and the rest, as they say, is history.
Even during the time of WWE's Attitude Era, the roster was filled with factions. The Nation of Domination, Too Cool, Right to Censor, The Corporation, The Ministry of Darkness, The Hart Foundation and so on. Factions had been an integral part of programming then and should still remain to be so.
There is no particular reason WWE has shied away from factions recently as they have brought in tremendous success in recent times as well. The Shield was one of the best things to happen in WWE in the last decade. But, in the present day, the closest thing we have to a faction on RAW is Titus Worldwide and I don't want to talk about that.
WWE seemingly avoids creating new factions. They teased Balor reuniting with his Bullet Club brethren, Gallows and Anderson before drafting the latter to Smackdown. Last year they had teased a Triple H lead faction consisting of Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens before sending Owens to Smackdown as well.
As factions tend to work best when started out as a heel, a new heel faction led by someone like Roman Reigns consisting of powerhouses like the Authors of Pain and a few out of favor guys like Mike Kanellis can run RAW for the foreseeable future.
It's absurd knowing the women have a faction in the Riott Squad while the men don't. The faction will even allow some more screentime and better directions for a few members of the roster. Tell me, a Finn Balor led heel faction of Cruiserweights, who have become tired of being overlooked sounds bad.
#2 A Lunatic burns it down
Imagine this. Seth Rollins just won the Intercontinental Championship back at Summerslam after fighting off both Ziggler and McIntyre. The duo attacks Rollins after the match and beat down on him.
Ambrose's music hits and he makes the save only to hit the Dirty Deeds on Rollins and raising the IC Title above his head. That would be a must-see feud at any given time.
Rollins and Ambrose have had more matches on WWE TV than one can count. But they have never disappointed. Kind of like a John Cena-Randy Orton thing, WWE likes to throw these two together when they can, the only difference is these two always put up one hell of a match.
With a return long overdue, Ambrose returning as an unhinged heel will be best for business. Rumors circulated that Seth Rollins is being primed for becoming the Universal Champion and be the top face of Raw and if that is to happen who better to take the IC title from him than his former Shield Brother.
A lengthy feud between Ambrose and Rollins starting from Summerslam can be gold. First facing off for the IC title where Rollins drops the strap to Ambrose and then having a rematch at Hell in a Cell inside the structure. We have all seen what they can do inside the cell. They can set up a perfect rubber match at Survivor Series if booking is done right and will give the viewers with months of must-see TV.
#1 A Monster rules the Universe
Braun Strowman is THE GUY. There is absolutely no doubt about it. The future of the WWE does NOT lie in the hands of Roman Reigns. It does, in the hands of Braun Strowman. And boy, would we like to get those hands.
Fairly decent in the ring and on the mic, Braun possesses that special charisma that made the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock megastars. He may not be as agile and as smooth in the ring as Seth Rollins or be as brilliant on the mic as Kevin Owens but whatever Braun Strowman does, becomes the talk of the town for the days to come.
Ever since he was separated from Bray Wyatt, Strowman has been on a roll. It's a huge surprise that he hasn't managed to win any singles championships till now as he is the type of superstar Vince loves. Braun hasn't even got one singles WrestleMania match to his name yet.
Considering how hot he has been for over a year, it's about time Braun breaks through the glass ceiling and finally gets his hands on what he deserves, The Universal Championship.
As Mr "Monster" in the Bank, it is almost a certainty that he will become champion in the days to come but the sooner the better. As we saw with Rusev, a superstar needs to be given his place under the spotlight as soon as the fan support starts. Wait too long and that opportunity will be lost.
Given the friendly direction WWE is going with Strowman, they just might ruin his spectacular connection to the fans before handing him the Universal Championship. Does that happen, WWE will rue the day they failed to pull the trigger on Strowman.
