10 Reasons WWE RAW 25 Was Such A Letdown
With all the hype surrounding it, RAW's 25th anniversary was a total dud.
Womp womp womp.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, most fans were actually looking forward to sitting down and watching RAW. Not only was this the go-home show for the Royal Rumble, but it was the vaunted 25th anniversary special. The guests were announced, and the two venues were packed. There was an air of goodwill and positivity toward the product and the show that had given us a quarter century of memories.
And WWE had to go and flush that goodwill down the toilet. After the heated segment with the McMahons and Stone Cold Steve Austin, the rest of the show fell off a cliff. But why?
From mishandling of venues, to poor use of talent, to general creative stagnation, RAW 25 was the ultimate example of WWE doing everything wrong with what's supposed to be an important, memorable night. Unlike RAW 1000 from 2012, it felt as though WWE had no understanding of what made its past or present product so wonderful. So what we had was a tacky three hour slog that made it all seem worthless.
10. Terrible Matches
Look, I know you guys were paying tribute to RAW's roots by having some of it take place in the Manhattan Center, but you do realize the in-ring quality has vastly improved since 1993, right?
From Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt's sub-five minute encounter to an overlong, heat-killing eight-woman tag match, this special episode of the most popular wrestling show of all time seemed to have no interest in putting on good professional wrestling.
In-ring, the only salvageable thing was Roman Reigns and Miz's IC title match, but even then, it didn't feel like a monumental match so much as a perfunctory freeing of Roman from the midcard. All the other matches were heatless and devoid of in-ring spectacle.
The Manhattan Center matches were the most egregious. Here we had Woken Matt Hardy vs. Bray Wyatt, as well as the Bullet Club vs. the Revival in front of a hardcore Hammerstein ballroom crowd, and they were just dead. Hell, at least during the WWECW debacles, they were invested enough to insult the wrestlers and yell, "Change the channel."
This show wasn't worth expending even that energy.