By Matthew Klink (@klinkmatt)

December 10, 2018

As I write this, another great SmackDown Live show has out-performed the consistently underwhelming Monday Night RAW. Not only is the roster killing it, the writing is better, the stories are fresh and hard to predict, and best of all, the storylines make sense!

Asuka is putting herself in a position to be relevant again. AJ Styles is way more exciting as the title chaser. Charlotte has hit her groove again. Daniel Bryan is rivaling Tommaso Ciampa in regards to being a nasty, easy-to-hate heel (which make me love him more). And Becky Lynch is the hottest superstar in pro-wrestling.

RAW Can’t Compete with SmackDown Live

The WWE has always considered RAW to be the flagship show. It was the show that helped the WWE reach new ratings heights in the late 90’s. The show that made Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon household names.

It’s the show that helped create the drama of the Monday Night Wars…and WON! It’s the show that gets all of the money. It’s the show with a 3-hour time slot. It was the show that was trusted to be live and the show that consistently ran over its time.

As those last two things aren’t true anymore, there’s also a couple of those items that have become burdens for the WWE. Things that were great at the time, but resulted in the company thinking it could (or will) always be best for business.

Beyond their past mistakes, what is going on now that that is slowing down the ratings? I have a few ideas:

• Universal Championship Decisions

• The messy story telling

• Bad casting

• Low Risk - No Reward

• 3 Hours is too long for wrestling

So why don’t we dive a little deeper into each one of these items?

Universal Championship Decisions

This is obvious and I’m not trying to say that we, as wrestling fans, don’t already know that the choice of Brock Lesnar a Universal Champion was a perplexing one. With Braun Strowman building his face character and being propelled forward by the momentum gained over the summer, it seemed obvious that he was going to take the mantle.

Beyond the latest decision, to give Lesnar gold, is the length of time that Lesnar was Champion in his previous reign. With plenty of fan-favorites waiting in the wings, it felt like the RAW writers were too burdened by the monster they had created, to let him take the loss.

Basically, they let him hold onto the title for so long, that only someone truly special could take Lesnar and become champion. Another problem, then, was execution. They built a great storyline for Roman Reigns to become champion at WrestleMania, but instead decided to troll us all and have Lesnar cheat his way to holding the title till Summerslam.

Definitely not anything I was dying to see.

Then there’s the list of superstars who could have been champion, during Lesnar’s reign, that find themselves in the position of either winning the Royal Rumble or doing nothing of relevance for the foreseeable future:

• Seth Rollins

• Finn Balor

• Dean Ambrose

• Bray Wyatt

• Elias

• Kevin Owens

• Sami Zayn

• Dolph Ziggler

Not everyone necessarily deserves a title shot, but you definitely couldn’t argue that weren’t any options.

I will concede that the list of WWE Champions is just as short as the list of Universal Champions in the last year, but the opportunity is greater (and more believable) at SmackDown Live.

AJ Styles had defended the title against Jinder Mahal, Shinsuke Nakamura, Rusev, Samoa Joe, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Daniel Bryan. Not only is this list diverse, but it is filled with superstars who were either held down on RAW or were given an incredible boost to their profile, by ALMOST beating Styles.

If you have a complaint about AJ Styles and his list of opponents (not to mention that he fights at every live show and shows up to every SmackDown) then you are reading the wrong blog.

Storytelling is Confusing

Choices are one thing. Injuries that force choices are another. Either way, there has to be a believable story that your audience can latch onto.

Like I’ll say in this article…on the podcast…in previous blog posts…THIS IS TRUE FOR ANY MEDIUM…So why should the WWE be exempt from creating compelling, real, entertaining, story?

What do I mean by bad/confusing story telling?

Bobby Lashley, Kevin Owens, Nia Jax, The Bellas have all been involved in bad narratives in the last year. Dean Ambrose, Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin, have all been subject to poor creative efforts…in the last week.

Lashley maybe should have never been signed. But his segments and promos, from before the summer of 2018, were absolute garbage. Some of the worst writing we have ever seen. It was not only beyond childish, but insensitive, sexist, pointless, and made no real push for either the heel or the face in the story.

The following weeks resulted in apologetic promos where Sami Zayn (who was unfortunately wrapped into this) had to struggle to get his heelish tactics over, but also take back everything he had done in the week prior.

While SmackDown Live absorbs all of the talent that the WWE feels are too small or aren’t blessed with an amazing physique, or the Rock’s level of charisma…they still find a way to do great storytelling.

Samoa Joe turns everything he touches to gold. Randy Orton became relevant again…because of story. Daniel Bryan is telling one of the best heel narratives of his career. Of course, its the Women’s Division that has decided to own all of the WWE, right now, by telling some of the best, pure wrestling stories we’ve ever seen.

While Becky and Charlotte had looked to setup a battle to go well into 2019, its SmackDown Live that turned up the excitement level by adding Asuka to the mix.

A move that definitely didn’t need to happen, but one that is turning the next chapter, in the Man’s rise to power, into another bout of epic proportions.

Still, with some of the best writing in the world, you can’t get any of it to work if you don’t have the right person in the ring, delivering the message.

Bad Casting

Bad Casting isn’t unique to pro wrestling. Its something that the WWE has ignored for years, because they think they know better. And yes, casting is hard to do when you have to qualify someone’s acting chops, their look, their voice, and their athletic ability all into one role…but it can still be done.

There’s a reason why “Higher Quality” entertainment doesn’t allow a stunt man to become the face of a Marvel Franchise. It’s because those starring roles do require a total package for an audience to believe.

Of course, you can’t expect the WWE to hire an actor to do the promos and then slide in a stunt actor for the wrestling matches. At the very least, however, more time and consideration must taken into account for the role someone is undertaking and benchmarking that with their size, look, and voice.

Nia Jax doesn’t have the voice to pull off an intimidating monster. So…either find her a mouthpiece (a manager) or change her dialogue. Bad casting doesn’t always mean you’ve picked the wrong actor for the role. It could also mean that you’ve built the wrong storyline for the talent and resources available to you.

There is a way to get Nia over and not have her in the ring talking like a SoCal beach babe. There is a way for her to show off the fist, as the “Facebreaker” and not let her nasally, “OMG” attitude get in the way.

And I mean no disrespect to the performer, but SmackDown isn’t asking Daniel Bryan to be a 7ft tall, unbeatable monster. They’re asking him to be a technical performer and a technical speaker in the ring.

Bryan doesn’t have a deep, intimidating voice. So Daniel needs to attack the crowd. He needs to throw out verbal abuse. Because we need a reason to hate him. Not fear him. Stop trying to make us fear Nia, if she’s going to do all of the talking. Instead, make us hate her.

Not Taking Big Risks

When you stay in your safe little bubble, you aren’t going to get much done. It’s true in business. It’s true in our personal lives. It’s true in romance. It’s true in the game of Risk!

And it is most certainly true in the WWE.

Back in the days of the Monday Night Wars, WCW took a huge risk and decided to poach a bunch of talent from the (at the time) WWF roster. It paid off in spades!

It was successful once, but…then they kept doing it. They saw a thing that worked…and then they gave up on innovation. They saw the NWO worked and ran that into the ground. They picked up so much WWF talent, they forgot to grow and nurture their own. They made one hot storyline (and by all accounts, the selection of Hogan to lead the NWO was made as a last second decision) and thought they could ride that wave into the sunset.

The WWE was no better. They introduced a more compelling way of telling stories (back in the late 90’s) that revolved around the anti-hero. Something we weren’t used to, but would organically gravitate towards because none of us are perfect. We needed a character that toed the line between good and evil. And that’s what we got.

Stone Cold Steve Austin.

And he wasn’t the only one. Think about how bad Triple H could be at times, but when the roster got thin and there was no where else to turn, they asked a talented wrestler and speaker to become a face for the company.

The WWE asked us to believe the best of us could turn bad and the worst of us could be good. Something the WWE does have trouble doing now.

Sure…there are characters like Randy Orton and Big Show who flip flop character leanings every week, but they do it so often, it almost means nothing. We want something different from our entertainment (even though we are creatures of habit) because we love the emotional rush from thrills and surprises.

We loved the Hogan heel turn because we thought it would never be possible. The same goes for Austin’s face turn, because at the time, he had all of the tendencies and patterns of a heel. He could never be our hero.

But now we are used to it. Guardians of the Galaxy was stupendous…and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was pretty good. But definitely lacked the thrill of seeing that group learn how to be good. The “golly gee” type of Superhero had gotten stale and we wanted a more fun path. You couldn’t have as much fun if you’re always trying to save face.

So when looking at this company and the entertainment industry as a whole: monumental, earth shattering success comes from taking risks. The next champion doesn’t have to be bigger than Brock. He also doesn’t need to have years of experience learning the “WWE Way”. Take a risk and have Brock lose the title in absolutely, unpredictable way.

Raw is Too Long

We all know it and we’ve all said it. I meeeeeaaaan…we even feel it! Every monday night. Its enough to push the lot of us to find some better way to spend our Monday Nights.

If the casting was good. If the stories were compelling. If the Main Event talent was actually present. Maybe this wouldn’t be an issue. But it is.

Monday Night Raw has been three hours for far too long and it isn’t even something that WWE wants to necessarily keep. They are in a bind now, with NBC Universal and the USA Network, where they are one of the biggest revenue sources for the the network. Now that the WWE has established how much 3-hours means to the bottom dollar, it might never go away.

But it could still be considered a source for everything wrong with the WWE. Whether they ever admit it, 3 hours is incredibly difficult to script You not only have to fill up those time slots, but each and every slot has to contain compelling content. One bad segment could kill the ratings for the rest of the night.

The three hours has also forced the WWE to use every ounce of talent they have in the locker room, for better or for worse. While getting to see more of the locker room could be considered a good thing, think about how silly some of the segments. And each silly segment could be incredibly damning on whoever is involved.

On top of risking a character’s good name is the fact that we all get tired of seeing the same guys over and over. Sort of the opposite effect we get from never seeing Brock Lesnar: Over exposure. Over exposure is always a bad thing and leads to go-away heat, messy writing, or confusing storylines.

Essentially, the performer is on TV so often that they’ve begun to establish a rapport with their character and the audience. But then when it’s time to change all of that, the WWE tosses any and all efforts that performer did (with a bad gimmick) and throws them in a completely different direction.

The WWE has had a problem with that on RAW and SmackDown, but they are more susceptible to this result when the show has to go for an extra hour.

Can RAW ever be fixed?

Its going to be a long road, if the WWE ever decides to start fixing some of their mistakes. I think we all can see the changes being made to get SmackDown Live ready for FOX. As FOX demands a more “sport-like” feel to their WWE programming schedule, SmackDown continues to deliver more and more great wrestling.

For RAW, this could spell the beginning of the end. If SmackDown is already pumping out the better programming and will eventually have the backing of a major network, is RAW doomed? Possibly.

But even if it is doomed, there are quite a few years between today and when the WWE would actually shut it down.

That being said, it wouldn’t be the end of the WWE. When things like RAW fail, its a good thing. The WWE needs to wake-up from the unconscious cruise control that they’ve been on for the last 10 years. Ruffle some feathers. Get parents to call into the WWE with complaints about the programming. Take some risks. Make the fans fan happy every now and then.

It can’t happen overnight, but it can happen.

As I’ve ended 75% of my articles on this site, whether I’m talking to the WWE, the Pro Wrestling Media, or the fans: Be better.

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