7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 14th)
1. Authoritative Tweeners
Can someone please check and see if Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are the bad guys? Sure, during the Attitude Era, there were a lot of shades of gray characters, but the authority figure (in those days, Mr. McMahon) was always pure evil. Today, however? Its not as easy to tell. Thats because Triple H and Stephanie cant seem to force themselves to be full-on heels for the entire three-hour broadcast. They plug Connors Cure. They dance with the New Day. They hype the Divas Revolution and go after champ Nikki Bella, making her title match at Night of Champions a bout where she can lose on DQ. And although they bailed out their golden boy Seth Rollins by putting his opponents (and potential opponents) in matches Monday, it comes after making Seth compete twice last week. Theres also legit playing to the audience, and not in a baiting sort of way. It all comes across as if they dont want to be hated all the time which is understandable. You can empathize with them wanting to be cheered for the good work they do with charity and pushing new and young talent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDSQhpq_iVs But if you want adulations, dont play the biggest villains in WWE. Find someone else to fill that role and step back from it. Doing this back-and-forth routine will only confuse people should they boo you this moment? Or cheer you because you might be breaking character here?
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.
