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Monday Night Raw for so long was known as WWE's flagship show, but over the last few months, the WWE creative team has destroyed any quality entertainment the red brand had to offer. However, after a very eventful Summerslam, WWE gave the fans a very eventful episode of Raw that ended with a white-hot conclusion.
Even though WWE got many things rights on Raw this week, they made an equal amount of mistakes as well. Therefore, while it is nice to finally say something positive about the booking on Raw after a long time, it is also worth noting that if WWE had avoided making the following mistakes last night's episode of Raw the red brand's produced could have been so much better
#1 Drew McIntyre's fading aura
This week on Raw Dean Ambrose took on Dolph Ziggler with both Seth Rollins and Drew Mcintire at ringside, and everyone knew at some point or another that this match was going to break down in an all-out brawl. And even though WWE got Ambrose's booking spot on Raw this week, they made a mistake with one aspect, the handling of Drew McIntyre. While it was Ziggler who was defeated last night, it felt like McIntyre was the one who lost, as WWE booked Rollins and Ambrose to take out the big Scot like he was just another wrestler.
And while many of you might feel like it doesn't matter whether Ambrose and Rollins took out McIntyre, little things like that make a difference on how an audience perceives a wrestler. Could you imagine Braun Strowman being laid out on a weekly basis by every single wrestler when WWE was building him up as an unstoppable force? And yeah at one point, McIntyre was believable enough to stand toe to toe with Strowman and take him out. The point is that Mcintyre is a future Wolrd Champion, but if WWE books him like Ziggler's sidekick then he will lose his badass aura.
#2 AOP continue to wander
The Authors of Pain should be the Raw Tag Team Champions at this point in their main roster run, as Akam and Rezar were freaking beats down in NXT. But on the red brand, they are just another set of wrestlers that WWE book in meaningless matches every single week. This week on Raw the meaningless matches continued as Akam and Rezar took on Titus Worldwide again, and the result was the same, they won.
But the point is why AOP is still stuck in a feud with Titus Worldwide when they could be lighting the tag team division on fire; no one will ever understand WWE's logic as their booking on one of the best monster tag teams of the decade is poor at best.
#3 Raw Tag Team Chumps
This week on Raw, The B Team came out to celebrate retaining their Raw Tag Team Titles, but soon they were on the receiving end of two easy singles losses to two members of The Revival. Now the point here is why did WWE make their top team on Raw look like a couple of jobbers?
Now as the fans already know Axel and Dallas will never be booked like world beaters by the WWE creative team, but why have them look so weak? At this point, the best thing WWE could do for the Raw tag team division is to put the titles on new champions, as Dallas and Axel are entertaining but they are not booked credible enough to carry a division.
#4 Painting The Shield as ultimate heels
The Shield returned to action last night on Raw, and for any fan out there that is exciting news. But Ambrose, Rollins, and Reigns reunited once again to take out one of the most over wrestler on the roster, Braun Strowman.
When The Shield returned last year to take out The Miz it made sense as The Miz is hated by fans as he is a fantastic heel, but costing a babyface like Braun Strowman his fair chance to win the Universal Title is just a heel move, how did WWE think that would be reasonable.
And everyone knows Rollins and Ambrose are only put together to get Reigns over, then WWE should do that in a way that would make them seem like babyfaces if that is the point.
#5 Finn Balor's credibility takes a knock
This week on Raw, Finn Balor walked into the flagship show getting a chance to reclaim the title he never lost, and while the eventful match between Balor and Reigns for the Universal Title was epic, it ended in a way that many couldn't see coming.
Balor losing clean to Reigns is something that is not surprising at all but when WWE had options to coincide their match in several ways where both men will have their credibilities intact, it is shocking they never took that chance.
As Balor losing to Reigns one night after he squashed Baron Corbin is a mistake in itself, it seems like WWE has buried him as a babyface and also any chance of him winning the Universal Title in the near future.
