WWE Reportedly Bringing Back Raw Roulette, KOTR & More

WWE set to return to old favourites to stop sagging ratings.

by Andrew Pollard
Cyber Sunday Set
WWE Network

As WWE looks to return to the road with a bang – and, y’know, stop those sagging Raw ratings – it looks as if plentiful themed episodes of Raw and SmackDown are on the way later this year and into 2022.

From the usually reliable @WrestleVotes and backed up by Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast, WWE has plans to bring back familiar concepts in order to make the company’s weekly TV product more entertaining.

Specifically, Raw Roulette, King of the Ring, Old School Raw and a variation of the Cyber Sunday/Taboo Tuesday model look to be on the table right now.

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From Zarian, it’s likely that King of the Ring and Raw Roulette will at least happen before the year is out, with other ideas being thrown around in order to, well, get people to actually tune in to WWE programming – particularly a Raw product that has been hitting some scarily low ratings numbers across the last year or more.

The concept that likely most grabs the attention here, is the King of the Ring tournament.

Given how Baron Corbin and Shinsuke Nakamura are feuding over a literal crown on SmackDown right now, how Xavier Woods is always quick to declare his love of the KOTR tourney on social media, and how on-screen authority figure Adam Pearce has talked up a possible King of the Ring return, one has to imagine that we can tentatively pencil that tournament in for somewhere down the line.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.