If there's one takeaway from last Monday's disappointing edition of Raw, it's that WWE has no idea how to properly use their legends. Admittedly, it is difficult to find a constructive role for a personality who doesn't wrestle even though the fans want him to, but when the company has access to legendary names such as Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, and Ric Flair, there's got to be something entertaining to do with them. Austin opened up the show by plugging his podcast and introducing The Undertaker, and that was his only role on Raw - a simple introduction that could have been handled by Lilian Garcia. Undertaker and Austin do have quite a history, so there was at least a bit of a thrill in seeing them in the ring at the same time once again. Ric Flair, meanwhile, introduced Roman Reigns in a meaningless segment that was a transparent attempt to get fans to cheer the future WWE Champion. Michaels played a larger role on the show, but it was no more productive. He got face to face with Seth Rollins, forcing fans to salivate over a dream match that will never happen, then ran down the current WWE Champion in a less than constructive way. Not only did the use of the legends seem silly in the moment, but it proved to be a waste - Raw's ratings were only a sliver above the show's 18-year non-holiday low.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
