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WWE has been trying to keep the ratings of their flagship show as high as possible, but have been failing to do so every week. They have injected Brock Lesnar back into the mix to try and achieve high ratings and even brought in the wild card rule to ensure that the star power remains sky high every week.
Even though that has been the case, it’s the creatives and the storylines that have been failing the company lately and not the superstars and the talent involved who are actually carrying the company forward through their efforts on screen and on social media.
This week’s Raw opened up a new box of questions as the bookings and the segments involved made little sense in the buildup towards Stomping Grounds.
In this article, we will look at the 4 biggest questions we have from this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw.
#4 Why did WWE kill Joe’s credibility?
This week on Raw, WWE brought together a diverse group of superstars in one segment which resulted in a six-man tag team match.
Ricochet, The Miz, and Braun Strowman took on Cesaro, Samoa Joe, and Bobby Lashley in the best match of the night which saw the faces emerge victorious after some chaos in the middle.
While the heels did lose some credibility, it was highly questionable that WWE made Joe run out of the match after getting in the bad books of The Monster Among Men.
WWE had teased a feud between the two men prior to the Superstar Shake-Up, but nothing came out of the one time attack. Even if WWE was trying to start a rivalry between the two men for the future, this wasn’t the best way to do so.
WWE could have just made Joe look as strong as Strowman by allowing him to take out his own teammates as his sole interest is in his championship belt.
See WWE RAW Results, Highlights of event, & more on WWE RAW Results page
#3 What makes The IIconics the longest reigning Women’s Tag Team Champions?
The longest-reigning women's tag team champions in WWE history came out to compete in a championship match after a long time which gave us some hope for the titles. However, all they did was give some local competitors a chance to challenge them and won the match quite easily.
At this point, the only difference between Lesnar’s longest Universal Championship reign and The IIconics’ reign is the fact that the IIconics show up on television much more often and take a whole lot of non-title losses.
Where are The Kabuki Warriors?, and why isn’t any other formidable team challenging the champions for the titles which they are just wearing around their waists without any reason? What happened to all the other women fighting to get into the Elimination Chamber just for the opportunity to be crowned as champion?
WWE seriously needs to get back to the drawing board for this championship.
#2 Why did Paul Heyman come out this week?
Paul Heyman walked out to the middle this week and denounced the actions of Rollins. After pointing out the reason why Lesnar was unable to cash in his briefcase at Super ShowDown, Heyman made a questionable announcement.
He stated that he and Lesnar were done announcing when The Beast would cash in Money in the Bank. This is the way it should have been from the beginning, considering how Strowman’s announced cash in last year went. Along with that, the element of surprise should also not have been announced by Heyman in a separate segment, and the same could have been achieved through a backstage interview.
All Heyman managed to achieve this week was secretly announce that Lesnar won’t be appearing on television again for a few weeks and that fans should just expect him to pop up at one of the pay-per-views again.
#1 What did WWE achieve this week through Raw?
From beginning the broadcast with the Universal Championship scene to following it up with the United States Championship scene, and then ending it again on the Universal Championship, there was a lot that WWE could have done on Raw this week.
Instead, they did little to nothing as neither did we find out who will be the next challenger for the United States Championship, nor did we get to see anything interesting in the Universal Championship domain.
During the middle part, Paul Heyman made an announcement that does not make much difference that the storylines that will continue following Super ShowDown, and The IIconics had a rubbish title match against local competitors.
Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre also made their way out to the middle, but Roman Reigns did not show up at all. This could have been the perfect way to build and announce the match between Reigns and McIntyre for Stomping Grounds rather than doing it so loosely last week on Raw.
Lars Sullivan also potentially ended his rivalry with The Lucha House Party after a 3-on-1 elimination match, something which he should have done on Friday.
Apart from the change of Tag Team Champions, WWE managed to achieve little to nothing in terms of storyline build any interest in the pay-per-view which will take place less than two weeks later.
