6 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 2)

6. Why Booking Requires Long-Term Planning

Wrestling critics will mention occasionally how the lack of long-term planning can hurt a promotion. We see this every now and again.

In this case, either a lack of planning or a small roster contributed to such a situation Monday night. Chris Jericho challenged Roman Reigns for the one championship that has eluded him: the United States Championship. A stipulation was added that Reigns could lose his title if he lost by DQ or countout, which made things a lot more interesting for wily veteran Jericho. However, Reigns managed to overcome Jericho when one of his traps backfired. (More on that later.)

All of this would be perfect and ripe for a back to the drawing board scenario for Jericho… had this been his first attempt at the title – and not his third in just nine weeks – or if the previous attempts were acknowledged and this was an escalation of Jericho’s effort to wrest the title from Roman.

But instead, it was considered in a vacuum and treated as a standalone title shot. It’s really a shame, because while sometimes the past can be inconvenient to storylines, a little planning and explanation could have added some depth and history.