7 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Raw (Sept 13)

2. WWE Goes All-Out

Earlier in the day Monday, Twitter lit up when Big E, a SmackDown superstar tweeted that he was coming to Raw to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase for the WWE Championship that night.

While many (rightly) called this a ratings grab, you can’t blame WWE for cashing in one of its chips to pop a solid rating. It got social media buzzing and most likely delivered a jump in viewers. They smartly had E open the show and pop up a few times backstage, reminding Randy Orton and Bobby Lashley (and fans) that he was still there and still fully intended to cash in.

Then, at the right moment, Big E did just what he said he’d do, and most importantly, WWE pulled the trigger. No bait-and-switch. No Dusty finish. No schmozz ending with a DQ or false cash-in. We got a clean match and a new WWE Champion.

The real test will come in the next few weeks as WWE rewrites the script, but really, after everything the competition had thrown at them recently and the creative cesspool that Raw has been for quite some time, they really had to shake things up. This was the right call.