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

2. Flaming Hot Garbage

nia jaxx
WWE.com

When Raw opened up, it looked like it was going to be a banner episode, starting out differently and leading right into a John Cena segment and six-man tag match.

But the wheels fell off very quickly, and Raw devolved into a mess of an episode with wrestlers who need to go on the shelf for a while and get off our televisions. Instead, we saw the hype video for the debuting NXT superstars for the 100th time rather than actually seeing these wrestlers compete. We got more Baron Corbin. We got more Nia Jax. And we got a hype segment for the Universal Championship match that tanked.

The matches weren’t bad, but they weren’t enough to overlook a simple truth: Fresh Start, McMahonaMania, whatever you want to call it, Raw is still Raw. And that is not a compliment. Raw is in need of a major overhaul, more than just opening the show with a brawl (which was a positive development, btw).

The downs that came after a great opening overpowered everything else, as one hot 30-minute start was followed by 150 minutes that varied between good and downright terrible.

How many writers does WWE employ? Why can’t they figure this out with an exceptionally talented roster and the resources to succeed? That’s what makes this so frustrating as a fan.

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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.