The Day WWE Monday Night Raw Died

The August 17th edition of the show was, to borrow a title convention from this very website, an absolute mess. A chronic drag that managed to make chaos both unconvincing and uninteresting, it conspired to create in-universe madness but instead just inspired madness in the Universe.

Thing is, that's become the soul-crushing norm since that fateful night in 2018. There was something very refreshing about Karl Anderson and Dax Harwood sharing a Twitter exchange about their rotten experiences during the filming of the aforementioned "celebration" with the DX boys club. These wrestlers had their own version of what once hooked them - Dax regularly puts over Bret Hart better than Vince McMahon ever f*cking will again - and were probably thrilled to arrive at work and spend time with a few heroes and get selfies with the ICOPRO banner.

But they paid even more than those poor four-figure punters for the privilege. Buried by the backslapping, they felt as aggrieved as the audience that gave their money or time to be a part of that stinging elongated turd of a broadcast. 4,500,000 people watched that episode, in contrast to the 1,643,000 that tuned in on August 17th.

If you think "The Day That Raw Died" is hyperbolic, go and find the three million people that have found something else to watch since then and ask them how alive WWE feels. The company will keep making excuses and the world will keep changing, but a 20-year gradual decline steepened over the last two will never just be because of the weather or the NBA or more people watching Netflix.

They have to make a better show again. They have to - as Steve Austin brilliantly put it during his aforementioned rant - "draw money" again. Or find and effectively book the stars that do. It's fitting that the former Scott Dawson was one of the biggest vocal critics of Raw 25 and WWE's output in general because it's now too late for red brand to cheat death with a quick fix - it needs a literal revival.