7 Ups And 10 Downs From WWE Raw's Season Premiere (Sept 30)

5. Find Lawler A Pasture

Jerry “The King” Lawler is a WWE Hall-of-Famer and a bona fide legend. His commentary work helped define the Attitude Era. His voice will rightly be part of the company’s historic soundtrack forever.

But it’s well past time to rescind his permit to do commentary for today’s product.

Lawler was the third man in the booth on Monday night, and it was painful. You could tell that new commentators Vic Joseph and Dio Maddin had next-to-no idea how to deal with The King’s dated references, bad jokes and disjointed comments.

Someone might have thought that with two new guys doing their first episode of Raw, it would be a good idea to have an experienced hand on the announced desk, but this was the opposite of what was needed. Lawler requires someone who can reign him in and refocus him – even more so today than years ago – and neither Maddin nor Joseph were going to be able to do that.

The result was a difficult-to-listen-to episode of Raw. Please, please, please do not have Lawler back next week.