4 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (30 March - Results & Review)

3. Proof Of Lazy Creative

This year’s build to WrestleMania has been rightly criticized for numerous reasons, but the incredible laziness of it all really should be put center stage, and Monday gave a great glimpse of how they’re using shortcuts and cheat codes to manufacture hot reactions.

Raw managed to squeeze in three brawls or attacks between rivals before they even got to the main event brawl between Roman Reigns and CM Punk: Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer, the four women’s tag teams, and Gunther and Seth Rollins. Plus, the Kabuki Warriors were ringside to distract Iyo Sky during her match.

That means by the time we got to Roman and Punk throwing down, fans already had seen this same skit three times to generate a buzz for a WrestleMania match. It’s the law of diminishing returns in action. Yes, fans reacted for the show-closing brawl, but it was bordering on overkill.

Heated rivalries are going to inevitably boil over into a brawl. Heels are going to attack the faces from behind. But when the entire night is nothing but these attacks to pop the crowd, it’s a sign that the creative team is bankrupt and out of actual ideas to tell stories, to talk people into the building. And WWE really needs to talk fans into the buildings in Las Vegas.

The one segment that got the loudest reaction of the night was one where the two opponents never touched. Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi merely threatened to throw down, with Paul Levesque stepping between them to break it up. The threat of two bulls charging at each other was more effective than every other fight that broke out.