It’s Official: WWE RAW Can’t Get Any Worse
So.
F*cking.
What.
How hallowed is the banger these days after all?
The level of ability across the board is such that great wrestling - the new currency of the whole deal - now represents the bare minimum. WWE boasts an enormous and enormously gifted talent roster. Presenting them in good matches is no effort nor challenge whatsoever. All WWE has to do, and this is what often happens, is rush together a match graphic, give the guys 15 minutes, and with no real thought as to what happens later, tell them to rip it up for 15 minutes. Or five after the ten minutes of heat and rest holds, anyway.
A great match is so prevalent now that it's not the selling point it was a few years ago. It's as much a part of the game as the ropes in 2021. It is almost difficult to not do. WWE should not receive credit for erecting ring ropes. It is a billion dollar empire that has the resources to create an immense shared universe - a grand narrative tapestry woven across its various brands, emulating inter-promotional warfare without striking up a single, dreaded working relationship - but they don't.
Getting these people over is the true challenge. On RAW, WWE variously attempts to do this by depicting Riddle as a braindead irritant, not knowing who embodies babyface or heel characteristics, ever, and scripting T-BAR to talk about stingrays or whatever the f*ck. The writing is, of course, pathetic. It's hard to even make a joke about it, to present a cold take in a manner that is halfway entertaining, because it's such an obvious and longstanding problem. Just listen to Jon Moxley, for Christ's sake. And Chris Jericho. And Steve Austin. And virtually everybody who has lived to tell from the experience of being made to say awful, humiliating nonsense.
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