Opinion: 5 Ways to improve Monday Night Raw

Monday Night Raw is WWE's flagship show or the "A" show. But a look at the TV ratings paints a very bleak picture.

The overall product of SmackDown Live is better packaged than Raw and whether WWE admits it or not SmackDown has definitely been the better of the two shows ever since the brand split has happened.

Also, a major shot in the arm for SmackDown Live is the fact it only runs for 2 hours whereas Raw runs for three hours.

SmackDown programming is short, precise and to the point, while Raw drags itself up to 3 hours through poorly written feuds and comedy acts.

Here are 5 ways through which WWE can look to improve the show and boost the ratings.

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#5 Tag team division

RAW tag team champions The Revival

The tag team division is the most neglected division on Raw.

While SmackDown Live has a pretty bloated tag team division with teams like New Day, Bar, The Usos, Sanity, Good Brothers, etc. The red brand, on the other hand, has teams like Ascension, Roode and Gable, Authors of Pain and of course the Raw tag team champions The Revival.

A look at the teams and one can easily decipher where the star-studded teams are present.

No doubt the teams on Raw are very good workers, but the crowd support is non-existent unlike for the Usos or the New Day and therein lies the problem. Comedy gimmicks and random partnerships also do not help the division.

If WWE wants to improve its Raw tag team division then some serious changes are needed to be made.

The first of those can be to bring one or two "big" teams from SmackDown to Raw. Sanity can be drafted to Raw. The trio is hardly on SmackDown TV programming most of the time for whatever reason.

Since Raw is 3 hours, WWE can easily dedicate at least 30-35 mins per week to the tag team division and for that 2-3 star-studded and rest solid teams are required.

Sanity and maybe Good Brothers can move to the other side and can have some good programming with Revival, Ascension, AOP etc. In this way, one brand does not have a bloated division where most of the time they have nothing to do.

And please, no more handing out the titles to temporary teams. That really diminishes the tag team division.

#4 Women’s Division

Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey face-to-face on RAW

The Raw women’s division is really about Ronda Rousey. Rousey decimated everyone on the red brand from Sasha Banks to Nia Jax to most recently Ruby Riot.

No doubt some of the matches were very good but WWE is again doing the same thing that they are doing on the men’s side i.e. banking on a short term fix. There are ongoing rumors that Rousey is only going to be a regular till WrestleMania as the "Baddest Woman on the Planet" eventually wants to settle down and have a family.

The hottest feud right now in WWE is the one involving Rousey and Becky Lynch (also Charlotte Flair) but apart from that what else is there?

Sasha and Bayley won the first ever women’s tag team championship recently so judgment on that is saved for later. Talented wrestlers like Natalya, Ruby Riot etc. have nothing to do apart from some random matches every week without proper feuds.

Also, WWE tends to have those stupid gimmicks every few months and at this moment Lacey Evans seems to be the one having that. Yeah, the women have had the main event of PPV’s but that is mostly is due to Rousey.

Lynch with "The Man" gimmick is the hottest thing right now in the whole of WWE. The correct culmination of this feud would be to have Lynch as the face of the women’s division and maybe the company.

The women’s division needs to have multiple feuds of high quality going on at the same time to keep the people engaged because Rousey is not going to stay forever and that may end the spotlight the women have been getting for the past few months.

#3 Mid Card

WWE can build a solid mid-card around Balor and Zayn

Ask any daily followers of Monday Night Raw about the low to the mid-card and the question would probably be laughed off at.

The creative team also seems to hold the mid-card in the same vein. The manner in which it is neglected is almost criminal for a company of WWE’s stature.

Wrestlers of the caliber of Balor, Lashley, Ziggler have no direction whatsoever and it would not be a surprise if one or more of them eventually decide to move to greener pastures because of the way their characters are handled. Lower mid-card wrestlers like Apollo Crews, Elias or even talented wrestlers like Titus are hardly on the show.

The prestigious Intercontinental title is treated as a joke at the best of times. It is hard to see why cannot WWE bet on wrestlers like Apollo or ECIII and support them to be the IC champion and feud with wrestlers of similar stature in the company. Returning superstars like Sami Zayn can be put straight in the picture and would look right at home.

If any of the mid-card talents make an impression and the crowds really get behind any particular wrestler then only the main event scene beckons. Case in point would be Kofi from the SmackDown.

WWE has to start somewhere because the way as it is now no one really cares about a majority of the wrestlers and sadly that is not their fault.No proper feuds and no direction eventually leads to no crowd support.

Wrestlers like a Ziggler or a Jericho are different because the nature of work between the ropes is so good that even without direction people get behind these two.

#4 Main Event

Seth Rollins needs to win the Universal Title at Wrestlemania 35

Remove Brock Lesnar. Plain and simple. A wrestler like Lesnar cannot be the face of a company because of the fact that only money matters for "The Beast Incarnate".

Not that anything is wrong with that but the fans want more. Fans want to see their champion appear on every show. They want the main belt in the company to be defended at all PPV’s.

WWE is not short of talented and proven main eventers on RAW.

From Rollins to McIntyre to Strowman anyone can carry the company and do a better job than Lesnar. With the return of Roman Reigns from leukaemia, WWE has a tough choice whether to put "The Big Dog" straight into the main event or to gradually ease in. Finn Balor can easily be relevant in the main event scene even though WWE management might think otherwise. There was a reason "The Demon" was chosen to be the first ever Universal Champion and either due to injuries or bad luck, the same heights have not been achieved since then. Rumors are that Rollins will go over Lesnar at Wrestlemania and that is the best way forward for WWE if it is indeed the case.

Also, the authority figure storyline needs to be scrapped from the main event scene. It gets repetitive and most of them are boring. Enough of the Mcmohans on TV.

Let the wrestlers do their thing and the crowd will be fully behind them.

#5 Storyline Continuity

Confused?

Is Elias a heel? Is he a face?

Is Dana Brooke a heel? Is she a face?

These are just a few confusions that come to mind from recent memory. WWE changes a character’s turns at the drop of a hat and that doesn’t help anyone. It is difficult to like or dislike a wrestler if the orientations are not known. Whether they are a heel or a face.

Remember the countless Big Show turns. The only difference now is that WWE tends to do that with multiple superstars. There is no continuity. If someone is feuding with others and there is no follow up the next week then how are the fans supposed to be invested.

The continuity problems have hampered most of the feuds on Raw and it would take a long time to write about all of them. This is just an overview of the errors in the ways of WWE Raw’s programming.

At least there should be a proper explanation or a follow up as to why a particular wrestler does one thing a week and another thing the next week.

Good talented wrestlers can keep the crowd engaged through anything but that doesn’t mean that WWE shouldn’t even try to keep reasonable continuity in their storylines.