10 Booking Steps For WWE Raw (30th Sept)

2. Treat Rollins And Mysterio Like A PPV

Right, look, I'm well aware I've basically spent an entire article advocating for good matches being given time and, overall, that's not a massively nuanced opinion, but this isn't a massively nuanced week. WWE just needs to beat AEW in every possible category and the one that they're really, really going to struggle with is the overall in-ring product.

They shouldn't, of course, but badly booking talent is a major reason why so many have departed the company over the years. Frustrated with their gimmicks, their promos and their matches, a groundswell of discontent has eventually flourished into All Elite Wrestling and this is the week those chickens come home to roost.

Except, this is business. There's no fairytale victory guaranteed for the upstarts down the road, and WWE will watch them wither and die relatively quickly if nobody's actually watching their show. Give people no reason to change the channel, and that might actually happen. Step 1: make your Universal title match feel hugely important and, thus, give all subsequent TV title defences a boost in hype when they're announced.

TL;DR - Rollins vs. Mysterio could be an absolute banger, so don't strangle it with a boring 10-minute timeslot or a stupid finish.