8 Reasons Why Today's WWE Raw Is WCW In Disguise
This list will put the butts in the seats.
Heads up, conspiracy theorists: we’ve got ourselves an imposter in WWE, and it isn’t really any one person. Rather, it’s the entire company itself. Okay, those claims may not be entirely true, but hold tight.
Coming off the back of a Fastlane pay-per-view that left many viewers decidedly underwhelmed, things have gotten so bad that some fans have been making comparisons between today’s product—specifically that of Monday Night Raw—and the final years of WCW, from the storylines, to booking trends right down to the very personnel being featured on the show.
Obviously, such comparisons have been embellished somewhat, and may not necessarily be wholly accurate. But even so, it can’t be denied that there are a fair few similarities between today’s product on Raw and the one that was presented by WCW in the final few years of its existence.
Mercifully, Vince Russo isn't penning it, decrepit rockers KISS haven't sponsored a WWE talent, and we aren't witness to a weekly pole match variation - but, with tongues wedged firmly in cheeks, the similarities elsewhere are abound...
8. Production
Starting with matters outside of the ring, let’s talk about the production of Raw.
Slowly but surely, and what is admittedly most likely a total coincidence, Raw’s production has been borrowing certain elements that were once a staple of WCW.
For starters, today an episode of Raw lasts for three trudging hours, much like WCW Monday Nitro did between 1997 and ‘99. And trudging really is the keyword there. Plus, the show employs an unnecessarily cumbersome three-man commentary team, which invariably means guys are competing to get a word in edgeways rather than focussing on putting over the action at hand. And to make matters worse, that three-man team is stationed way up on the entranceway instead of the usual position at ringside, so they're not even truly immersed in the matches they're calling.
All in all, it makes for a fairly WCW-esque landscape, but in fairness, it likely isn’t by design. Besides, Vince McMahon and the production team probably weren't even watching WCW at the time, what with being busy running their own show, so how could they be accused of ripping it off?