Anniversaries...they only come 'round once a year. And 20th anniversaries are a once in a lifetime and monumental milestone be whatever they represent: marriage, employment, or even professional wrestling. WWE's RAW television program celebrated 20 years of being a part of broadcast cable television this past Monday night. Two decades on TV, with two decades of TV history to pull from...well, what they delivered was more of the same stagnant programming that has plagued the RAW program in recent years. And it shouldn't have been: it should have been a night to remind us all why we love this show, celebrating its past and how we got to this point - not spending 3 hours giving us the same sub-par effort that it has in recent years. And here are 10 of the reasons why the longest running television show in the history of cable TV got it all wrong on their big night.
10. The Opening Segment
The opening segment sets the tone for the entire evening. It should be hot, flashy, and off the hook. Now, it was a nice start to the show with Mr. McMahon in the ring as he played the devilish CEO genius but also thankful brand creator in the same opening moments of the promo. But that was it for the opening segment: the Big Show's music then hits, and immediately all anticipation for the night ahead was sucked out of the building and replaced with Paul Wight's midcard-at-best, "giant" in the ring, complaining of being screwed over on SmackDown last week for the World Championship. We don't care about SmackDown, especially not on a night like tonight. Top that "giant" sundae with an appearance by Alberto del Rio, your reigning World Champion, fellow midcard-at-best talent, and also overall buzz-killer, and the opening segment destroyed my hopes for any type of celebration that would closely resemble a fun time over the next 3 hours.
9. Miz TV
Admit it, it's always painful to watch, but still the WWE creative minds believe they need to give us MizTV week in and week out. The Miz is beyond talented in the ring, but his talk show gimmick has not worked since day one. And bringing Ric Flair into the fold last night only made it worse. Flair's appearance felt like a wasted attempt to get MizTV "over" with the viewers, and the legendary Ric Flair deserves much better. And so does The Miz, for that matter. The MizTV segment is the lamest of all "talk-show" style segments the WWE has ever produced, and it's time to let it go; it's certainly not worthy of being on a show that's celebrating it's 20th anniversary, and adding another mid-carder named Cesaro to the segment was no help.