6 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Raw (6 Jan - Results & Review)

1. A Badly Fumbled Debut

WWE spent the month before Monday night talking up the debut of Raw on Netflix as a game-changer, an Earth-shattering event that would redefine the wrestling landscape forever. Indeed, exposing a global audience to Raw via a streaming service is a huge deal.

But Raw Monday night was little more than a subpar show with minimal storyline developments, barely passable wrestling, and piss-poor pacing, camouflaged by stunning visuals, celebrity and “surprise” appearances, pyro and other shortcuts. WWE also spent a great deal of the night gaslighting the audience by constantly reminding them how historic the show was rather than simply putting on a good wrestling program.

The best possible comparison would be a circa 2019-23 Raw after WrestleMania, where fans were riding an artificial, euphoric high coming in the door, and WWE simply pumped surprise appearances, recap packages, and other gimmicks to mask a lackluster show, hoping the crowd would simply pop for the empty calories.

This, however, was worse in that WWE went into Raw with several high-profile matches booked, the return of John Cena, and a late addition of The Rock, and this show still underperformed what many episodes have offered during the past year.

It’s possible to give WWE a bit of a mulligan because they needed to accommodate a lot of atypical elements on this program. Next week’s show should be more of a return to form. If they recover and deliver, then it’s safe to call this a one-week aberration due to the pomp and circumstance of the big night. Still, this definitely is not an episode that will be replayed or regarded as a classic by any stretch.