5 Ups & 7 Downs For WWE Raw (8 Sept - Results & Review)
3. Booking On The Fly
When Raw went on the air Monday night, it had two matches announced, plus the Raw return of AJ Lee. That’s not terrible, but that’s also not enough to fill 150 minutes of programming.
During the course of Raw’s first hour, GM Adam Pearce booked three more matches, all of which occupied Raw’s final hour, including the main event. And these weren’t aired as “earlier today” backstage confrontations – they all took place in real time during the show.
That means – in kayfabe – that Raw went on the air Monday night with only a half-booked show and then just slapped three matches together during the program to fill out the episode. That’s insanely ridiculous and isn’t serious scripting. At least when they do the “earlier today” shtick, it partially absolves the image of not having a plan for the show when it begins.
Doing this is also lazy booking because you don’t have to employ foresight or even modest advance booking to announce a match the week prior (or even during the week). Even if they just announced the card at the beginning of Raw and it was a couple random pairings, that would at least feel like a competent program.
Instead, it’s just Pearce relying on the chaos backstage to generate enough confrontations to fill out his card.