Notes On This Week’s WWE Raw Creative Process
Sounds like this week's Raw wasn't as chaotic as usual...
WWE (and specifically its chairman, Vince McMahon) is renowned for its last-minute tinkering, with episodes of Raw and SmackDown often not coming together until close to airtime. Rewrites, cancellations, and other switch-ups are commonplace - but not this week.
Fightful Select reports that much of this week’s Raw content was actually finalised by Sunday. Everything relating to RETRIBUTION, Sheamus, The New Day, and The Hurt Business was in the can a full day in advance, along with other bits and pieces, meaning there was relatively little work for the writers to do on Monday, with none of the aforementioned performers’ plans changing.
One would imagine this must have come as a great relief to a creative team used to going all the way to line, particularly on Monday nights. Barely a week passes without talk of Vince changing something at the last second or not finalising the script until the afternoon of the show.
This week was WWE Raw’s special ‘Season Premiere’ episode. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly well-received on a critical level, and didn’t spark a ratings boost either, with the show down in overall viewership and in the key 18-49 demographic.