After pulling out nearly all the stops in terms of wrestling star power last week, WWE reloaded the night after Hell in a Cell and delivered one of the better episodes of Raw in recent memory. How did the beleaguered company manage this? Bring the Rock back to verbally joust with John Cena? Have Santino return to hold a dance-off? Focus on multiple campy backstage segments? Nope, WWE went the route of putting on a wrestling program, announcing a mini-tournament to name a new number one contender for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, consisting of five match matches. Automatically, three-quarters of the in-ring action had serious stakes associated with it. Throw in a Diva heel turn and a second abduction from the Wyatt Family and you have an eventful episode of Raw that was focused on what happened inside the ring as opposed to backstage vignettes. The obvious question is whether this focus resulted in better ratings for Raw, or if the ongoing freefall will continue. If things dont start improving soon, its reasonable to expect some drastic shift, such as a title defense (and possible switch) on Raw or some other effort to make the show must-see television. We got a taste of a possible new direction Monday when the new top contender was determined, but theres still several weeks before Survivor Series. So what sizzled and what fizzled Monday night? Lets get to it
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
