6 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Raw Superstar Shakeup

7. No More Authority Figures?

Raw Shane And Stephanie McMahon
WWE.com

Let’s harken back to December, ancient history in WWE’s world: All four members of the McMahon family stood in the ring to address the plummeting ratings.

They told us that they heard the fans, that they understood we wanted to see more wrestling, new faces, new matchups, and less of authority figures running around sucking up time and chewing scenery.

So naturally, Raw opened with Stephanie and Shane McMahon in the ring in full heel mode, playing it up to rile the fans, even insulting the dialect spoken in Montreal. Yup, we got two authority figures yapping and putting down other wrestlers (Kurt Angle and The Miz, in this case), because God knows we needed heels running Raw and SmackDown running roughshod.

This is just a reminder to everyone who thought that the December in-ring promo from all four McMahon family members actually meant there would be some kind of meaningful change: When in doubt, WWE will always default to the McMahons as central characters, usually villains.

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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.