8 Reasons Why Last Night's WWE Raw Failed To Live Up To The Hype

6. The Shane-Undertaker WrestleMania Match Was Rendered Pointless

shane vince raw

Vince should have listened to those fans though, especially when they vociferously cheered the prospect of Shane McMahon taking over Raw. Just think about that for a second. What the fans are actually doing is loudly and blatantly expressing their opinion that Raw in its current form is a steaming pile of horsesh*t.

Why does WWE fail to realise that and refuse to make any changes to the tired old format that has been hampering the show for two decades? Fans want a shake-up, they want change. They don€™t reject Raw to be different or obtuse, but because they are bored of getting fed the same thing every week without any variation. WWE€™s rigidity when it comes to the formula of their TV presentations plays a large part in nobody getting over.

The fact that Vince then handed control of the show over to Shane for the evening rendered one of the WrestleMania main events almost entirely pointless. Vince fought for five weeks to make sure that exact thing never happened. He was willing to disown Shane and watch The Undertaker leave him a quivering mass of flesh in the ring in order to ensure such an outcome did not occur. Yet, the night after the match, he has suddenly softened his stance enough to give Shane a shot?

No consistency, no logic. Stipulations are absolutely worthless. Worse still, Shane was booked to do nothing of note in his new temporary role. Outside of a few brief backstage chats and being credited for things he blatantly would have had nothing to do with, he barely featured. Raw was thus the same Raw that is always is; there was no shake-up, no change to the norm, just a few different faces filling in the blanks of the tried and tested pattern.

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The author of the highly acclaimed 'Titan' book series, James Dixon has been involved in the wrestling business for 25 years as a fan, wrestler, promoter, agent, and writer. James spent several years wrestling on the British independent circuit, but now prefers to write about the bumps and bruises rather than take any of them. His past in-ring experience does however give a uniquely more "insider" perspective on things, though he readily admits to still being a "mark" at heart. James is the Chief Editor and writer at historyofwrestling.co.uk and is responsible for the best-selling titles Titan Sinking, Titan Shattered, and Titan Screwed, as well as the Complete WWF Video Guide series, and the Raw Files series.