10 Terrible Recent Decisions That Led To WWE Raw’s Worst Week EVER
Rock Bottom reached without a 'Great One' in sight...
Last July, the tragic sight of Kevin Owens sprayed blue by the liquid used to clean portaloos moved your writer to have a look into the very worst habits within WWE's busted creative flush. The hunt was expedited when WWE reached what most assumed to be the final destination for their latest creative malaise.
The lowest viewership in the history of the show was posted following this particularly grisly mid-summer slump edition of the broadcast, but this was literally old news when the company went on to top it three more times that year.
The records tumbled so often in 2018 that only the qualifiers could be adjusted to try and work through a slide that wasn't being arrested. Quiet time for television, bad weather, cable cutting, peak periods for various sports/other shows and all the other typical excuses were trotted out as WWE mined every last bit of star aura they could from existing giants Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey without overhauling anything else badly in need of repair.
As of May 2019, Lesnar and Rousey are gone but the same troubles remain. It's taken some going to get so much wrong in the 10 months since the Montreal hard-hitter was locked in a plastic sh*tter, but May 6th's abysmal effort highlighted the horrendous problems still in place.
A relatively low 2.24 million tuned in to watch it on the promise of Vince McMahon and Roman Reigns turning up, but it's hard to imagine that same number maintaining patience with the product...
10. Baron Corbin: Authority Figure
In hunting for a kayfabe excuse for some very real life problems, WWE's writing team and McMahons themselves pointed their weapons at Baron Corbin.
'The Lone Wolf' was gleefully (and unforgivably) castrated by John Cena during his inaugural push the prior year, yet was expected to approach an ill-fitting quasi-GM role with gusto and enthusiasm because the company still has a wrong-headed approach to something as simple as a "push".
Baron Corbin, in 2018 WWE was "pushed", because he was on television every week setting up matches and smart-talking the babyfaces. This "push" also amounted to him almost always getting more comeuppance than the committed crimes justified, him being required to wrestle across multiple segments to the point of instant overload. A stalled "push" that required such constant refuelling that he was booked to go 60/40 with Finn Bálor across the summer, damaging 'The Demon's goods in the process.
It was, subsequently, the polar opposite of a well-booked authority figure, if such a thing even exists now.
Without the pressure of pretending to run the show, Corbin slotted back into life in the upper-mid card, but his position as a ratings-killer had sadly become a self-fulfilling prophecy in the meantime...