Unpopular Opinion: Vince McMahon’s Raw announcement didn't mean much

When WWE made it clear that Vince McMahon was coming to the December 17 episode of Raw, and that he intended to shake things up, it seemed as though it might be a big deal. Sure, a more cynical contingent of fans moderated their expectations and predicted that the McMahon appearance was a ratings ploy and that nothing meaningful would change. Still, McMahon hasn’t had a regular presence on Raw for some time. With WWE seemingly in a rough spot with Roman Reigns out, ratings down, and the critical response poor, it wasn’t so unbelievable that he would do something radical.

However, we instead got McMahon joined by Stephanie McMahon, Triple H, and Shane McMahon, thus putting the four most famous already established WWE power brokers all in the same place at the same time to acknowledge that things haven’t been great. From there, they suggested they’d take a more hands-on approach and make things better.

The trouble here is that the McMahon family was already in charge of the product. Maybe there’s a reasonable implication that they were going to push the rest of the writing team down a peg to tap into a certain McMahon judgment or creative ethos, and maybe that could mean something. However, if backstage reports are to believed, Vince already wrote recent episodes of Raw personally, and they all had a particularly poor response.

The episode of Raw to follow was decent enough, and we will get some welcome returns and debuts on the main roster. However, the problem has never been a lack of talent—indeed, WWE has one of the richest talent pools in wrestling history at its disposal, and it’s the creative direction of the company that has been suspect since summer, if not as far back as spring.

Baron Corbin getting exiled from power and some feel good face wins are steps in the right direction, but the announcement from Vince and his family had minimal substance. We’ll just have to wait and see if WWE actually does take any new steps from here.