How WWE Are Intentionally Killing Raw To Save SmackDown

Raw's indifferent offering was reflected in an objectively lousy number for a show that should have been bolstered by the giant it stood on the shoulders of. The 2.92 million that tuned into Brooklyn's lacklustre effort were part of the smallest post-WrestleMania television audience in history.

Those that did weren't exactly spoiled rotten for their choice for the night. For several years now, the brief for this particular episode has listed legends, call-ups and surprises. Whilst WWE just about satisfied the remit, the company found the way to make each offering something of a worst case scenario. Interrupting Elias, The Undertaker was a giant leap down from the Doctor Of Thuganmomics one night prior. Lars Sullivan and Lacey Evans made good on call-ups that had already occurred in January. Sami Zayn fell on his a*se just weeks before he'll most likely die on it.

With the best of intentions from the talents themselves, these were not jaw-droppers akin to moments from years gone by. WWE had to have known this - the main event booked at the start of the night was used as a hook despite there blatantly never being anything resembling an intent to actually pay it off. The screwy conclusion to the Seth/Kofi main event rattled the natives, which in turn rattled the television audience. It's tough to stay switched on for all three hours of a great Raw, let alone not switch off if and when things go south.

Indeed, these factors could have have nurtured a number that, internally, had to have been considered a disappointment, but are the litany of likely excuses just masking an unspoken truth about how the company have managed a decline of the show in recent months?

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