10 Terrible Decisions That Led To WWE Raw’s Lowest Ever Rating
Red Brand Feeling Blue
The news that WWE had drawn its lowest viewership in company history was far less of a shock than it should have been.
In this year alone, the company celebrated itself with a show so bad it highlighted that they're incapable of even producing a nostalgia show anymore - the one format ostensibly bulletproof to the problems spat out by WWE's malfunctioning creative machine. Raw 25 was a disasterpiece - rookies and legends alike were buried depending on the whims of a select few, with Steve Austin's silencing at the start of the show was only slightly less insulting than The Revival's show-closing burial in front of some high-ticket punters in the Manhattan Center that had been well and truly bantered off as a reward for their misguided loyalty.
The mid-July placement no longer allows for the post-WrestleMania slump excuse, just as 2002's end-of-an-(Attitude)-era dip couldn't be laid at the feet of the Taliban - unlike everything else the company's jingoism did on-screen for the next few years.
There are no more excuses, but none will be forthcoming anymore. Acolytes and company insiders alike will parrot the enormous television rights fees and steady Network subscribers as a defence against the company putting a foot wrong, but it's this divide between corporate and consumer that will ultimately draw the most disdain and, evidently, the least viewers.
This week's dip was not an anomaly. The slow stroll to this nadir has carried with it a certain inevitability with each baby-misstep leaving a disastrous footprint.
10. John Cena/Roman Reigns > Hulk Hogan
Roman Reigns hears the boos and jeers of the audience on a weekly basis because fans - long before he even entered his prime years - decided he wasn't worthy of the company's focused attention at the top of the card.
This was a holdover from the two pushes that preceded it. Daniel Bryan was forced to abdicate the throne in 2014 due to injury the company cynically forecasted when they labelled him a "B+ Player", but it was apparent before he even won the main event of WrestleMania XXX that he wasn't really the choice to replace John Cena after all. Audiences sensed this, and stubbornly drove Daniel to the top spot over top liners Dave Batista and Randy Orton whilst Cena smartly sidestepped into a feud with Bray Wyatt until the heat died down.
'Big Match John' remains the template for which today's 'Big Dog' was sadly formed. Cena was a reincarnation of 1980s Hulk Hogan for a millennial generation, harnessing 'The Hulkster's dominance, his superhero comebacks and impossible feats of strength, endurance and courage. Unlike quarterly television and pay-per-view attraction Hogan though, Cena managed it every single week.
Roman Reigns remains a man forced to be the square peg struggling to squash into the gaping round hole left by 'The Champ'. It won't work. It will never work. And yet Vince McMahon won't stop trying.