6 Ups And Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 12th)

1. Lack Of Planning

Raw featured two matches that exemplify the problem WWE has with long-term €“ or even short-term €“ booking and planning. Fans got two matches Monday that could have been on PPV at a point in the future, but they instead were thrown onto Raw without any hype. The earlier-mentioned Rusev versus Dean Ambrose contest obviously wasn€™t meant to be anything conclusive, but putting it out there like that seemed like a waste. The biggest offender though was Luke Harper challenging Roman Reigns. Remember when the Wyatt Family and Shield would lock up and it was a big deal? Luke Harper is a talented, agile big man who can go in the ring. Monday€™s match showed that Reigns can have a good one-on-one match against a good opponent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohOgojW23VQ So here€™s the problem: WWE has known for a good while that Reigns is going to be a top guy for them. They want to book him to look strong and impressive in the ring. How hard is it to look at the roster and find quality guys to build up so that Reigns can knock them down? Instead of having Big Show look strong so he can feud endlessly with Reigns (in poor matches), why didn€™t WWE book Harper strongly post-Survivor Series and then push this matchup as a big deal? This is perfectly reflective of the problems facing WWE today, with next to no planning or foresight put into things beyond a week out.