6 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (Nov 29)

Ups…

6. Running Down The Card

Seth Rollins Finn Balor
WWE.com

This column has been super-critical of WWE for running Raw by the seat of its collective pants, with matches being made on the fly as the show rolls along, so we should give credit to the company for at least partly addressing it.

The standard lately has been for Raw to open with a promo train that inevitably leads to a couple of matches being made, then a challenge laid down later in the show for another bout, and at least one more impromptu contest set up randomly.

But the last couple of weeks, the announcers have opened Raw by running down several matches slated for the night. Monday, the commentators previewed three matches and teased Edge’s return to the show. Then they almost immediately went into Seth Rollins’ promo, which led into his opening bout against Finn Balor.

It’s almost as if there was an ounce of planning to this show and it wasn’t written on the back of a cocktail napkin in catering 30 minutes before airtime.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.