5 Ups & 5 Downs For WWE Raw (11 Aug - Results & Review)

For the longest time, WWE programming was so utterly dismal that it was easy to point to the negatives: disjointed and inconsistent booking, terrible scripting, boring matches, and a tired, unimaginative product.

When the old regime was pushed out in mid-2022, much of the very basic complaints vanished. Storylines were more competently booked – and actually followed from week to week – with characters being developed and having more logical progression. They began tweaking the presentation of the product as well, leading to WWE earning some rightful praise for clearing the low bar it had set itself.

However, that praise has given the impression that WWE is cooking simply by not being as rotten as they were five or six years ago.

More recently, Raw has been mired in a mediocre funk. While still more competently booked, the product has fallen back into several bad habits. The show has big stars doing stuff, but what actually happens? What are the big developments? Matches get plenty of time to breathe, but half of them are average, and a good chunk end in no contests or disqualifications. Feuds inexplicably drag on for months.

Monday’s offering was a good encapsulation of these issues: The positives were modest ones, while the “downs” were part of those more systemic issues. Big stars did stuff, and the crowd was hot, but the show was not. You don’t finish watching Raw feeling like you can’t wait for next week’s program, or rush to social media to discuss the latest major developments.

It’s quite literally a wrestling program happening in front of your eyes. Stuff happens, you watch it, and then you go to bed. There are still “ups,” but if not for the women this week, this would have been a pretty big snoozer.

Let’s get to it…

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