WWE "sHAKE up": Will WWE Truly Change?
By Josh Roth
Admitting you are wrong is always a step in the right direction in to bettering oneself and this even applies to big corporations like the WWE. They sent out Seth Rollins to be the voice of the frustrations that fans and critics have been having for months or better yet years last week. Raw specifically was the one they focused in on, which has been very hit or miss (mostly miss). So WWE decided it is time to listen, or at least so they say. Now we got a better than expected TLC PPV which they capped off with an important moment in the history of women’s wrestling that saw the first women’s TLC match that ended up main eventing a PPV that included big matches like Rollins versus Ambrose and New Daniel Bryan versus AJ Styles. Fans responded in kind and left a good taste in our mouths heading into Monday Night Raw. Now I have to admit I tend to set extremely high expectations and this was the case again when Vince McMahon announced that he was going to be at Raw and was going to shake things up. Would we be getting a draft? A superstar shake-up? A new gm? Is the Universal Title going to be stripped from Brock Lesnar!?!?
The answer should have been obvious, but I fell hard for it and thus was let down a bit when all we got was that Vince, the commissioners Stephanie and Shane McMahon and COO Triple H were taking control of both shows together and giving the power back to the fans (sadly my first thought went to Taboo Tuesday’s which allowed fans to vote for matches…it was a disaster). The speech was solid and I was ready to hear how they planned to make said changes. What we got was a bit of a buzz kill. Now we ended up getting some things that we have wanted to see, but nothing about it was fresh or new. The things we got were purely results based. To start we got a beat down of Baron Corbin who had been the symbol of creative/leadership of Raw, however this is nothing new as we saw this the night before with TLC. If the McMahons and Triple H were serious about giving the fans what they wanted they would have never given him the opportunity. However, I don’t mind what they did as it was their way to embarrass him and show the fans that they hear them loud and clear. After this I expected some clarity in either backstage segments or for them to make one final big announcement at the end of the night to let us know that they have something big in store for us. It never came.
Instead we got a lot of the same matchups and feuds we have been seeing for quite some time now with one exception which was seeing Tyler Breeze getting an opportunity to go after the Intercontinental Title and he did not disappoint. What really would have made things seem like they were changing would to have Seth Rollins screw over Dean Ambrose during the match and have Tyler Breeze walk away with the Intercontinental Title. It would have been fresh, it would have brought more fuel to the fire and a way to get Seth away from the IC Title and on to the Universal. However Seth Rollins stayed in his mask until after the match in which he attacked Dean. I think the crowd would have went absolutely gone bonkers if Breeze walked away with it and the change would have been felt throughout the WWE Universe, but instead we just got a match for Breeze. This match is one of the issues that has plagued the WWE and that is they are unwilling to take chances. Breeze is an excellent in ring performer with a character that could be intriguing and has been intriguing, but they haven’t given him the proper time (Still bitter about Fashion Police not winning tag titles). This ultimately would foreshadow what to expect for the rest of the night which wasn’t necessarily bad, but was a tad underwhelming.
Now after this we got a lot of the same Lashley and Elias feud continuing with Elias getting his guitar shot in on Lashley only to have Lashley no sell it. Then there was the triangle involving Finn Balor, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre, which I don’t mind, but have it go somewhere like a future title shot. There were positives though out the show too. The good news was Revival finally won and they get a tag team title shot to boot. They got rid of Lucha House Rules which were just handicap matches and confuses me a bit because are the Lucha House Party supposed to be heels? It doesn’t seem like they are supposed to so I don’t know why Corbin decided to give them those rules, EXPLAIN YOURSELF CORBIN! We got video packages on returns of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, which was my favorite moment of the night because I anticipated they would be out longer than what it seems they will be.
The best moment in reality was that they gave the women an hour to end the show and run a proper gauntlet match to determine the next challenger to Ronda Rousey’s Raw Women’s Championship. Now you can say “they didn’t give it to the person we wanted in Bayley or Sasha” or you can moan about them throwing them all in together in one big match, but this was a good call and executed well. They gave each wrestler a time to shine and get some offense in. They kept the likes of Bayley looking strong and Sasha for that matter too. In the end it would be Natalya to stand tall and this is the absolute right call. She is one of the pioneers of this women’s revolution and seems she get overshadowed by the four horsewomen. Natalya helped these four along the way and some great matches with Charlotte to help get them on the map. Oh and by the way she was also killing it with her feud with Ruby (who deserves some love too). Two nights in a row the women main event and I think the majority of the universe is overjoyed by this.
So there were positives to take away from Raw, but I think when we hear shake up we expect more than a group (I am keeping it kayfabe because Triple H you are killing it in NXT) that has largely been the problem remains intact and yet finds scapegoats like Corbin to blame for their errors. The good news is there is plenty of time to right this wrong and I think us as fans need to show a little bit of patience with it all. I doubt we see much change the next couple of weeks as we head into the holiday season and really they should save any big moments until after that time, but come January 7th we need to start seeing this change take place. We need a shake-up in rosters and I would love to see the Draft come back. I have had my reservations about this because it may be better to hold a draft until the new television deals come into place and allow the Networks to broadcast their own draft coverage, but a mini draft or a shake-up would be great. I would love to see Finn Balor move over to Smackdown and have a good feud with Daniel Bryan. Becky and or Charlotte needs to head to Raw and have new competition that matches up better with Ronda. Bayley and Sasha to Smackdown where they can become the first ever Women’s Tag Team Champions and take on the likes of Naomi and Lana, The IIconics, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, etc. or give fresh competition to the Smackdown Women’s Championship. I would also love to see New Day or Usos head to Raw and The Revival head to Smackdown to give a new look for tag team division.
It doesn’t have to just be a shake-up of rosters either. With Triple H involved in the decision making of Raw and Smackdown, why not have his brand attack and legitimize themselves as the third brand? I could see the Undisputed Era making a move like that and beating down Seth Rollins or Finn Balor. The biggest thing though that needs to change is creatively. They cannot be dead set on just a couple of talents as main event talent, let the talent grab that brass ring. Finn Balor, Samoa Joe and New Day are probably the greatest examples of this. All should have been holding major singles belts by now, but they are constantly being passed over by the same few. Take chances! Give someone like Tyler Breeze the shot that you did Monday except give him a chance with the title. Don’t let great NXT talent flounder like we are seeing with Sanity, The Revival, and Almas. And for the love of god take the damn Universal Title off the part timer Brock Lesnar! A new year is just right around the corner will we see a new WWE to go with it? Or will we be disappointed yet again with empty promises? Time will tell, but I will remain positive and patient with it. I fully expect that when 2019 officially gets here a new WWE will be here as well…or so I hope.
Admitting you are wrong is always a step in the right direction in to bettering oneself and this even applies to big corporations like the WWE. They sent out Seth Rollins to be the voice of the frustrations that fans and critics have been having for months or better yet years last week. Raw specifically was the one they focused in on, which has been very hit or miss (mostly miss). So WWE decided it is time to listen, or at least so they say. Now we got a better than expected TLC PPV which they capped off with an important moment in the history of women’s wrestling that saw the first women’s TLC match that ended up main eventing a PPV that included big matches like Rollins versus Ambrose and New Daniel Bryan versus AJ Styles. Fans responded in kind and left a good taste in our mouths heading into Monday Night Raw. Now I have to admit I tend to set extremely high expectations and this was the case again when Vince McMahon announced that he was going to be at Raw and was going to shake things up. Would we be getting a draft? A superstar shake-up? A new gm? Is the Universal Title going to be stripped from Brock Lesnar!?!?
The answer should have been obvious, but I fell hard for it and thus was let down a bit when all we got was that Vince, the commissioners Stephanie and Shane McMahon and COO Triple H were taking control of both shows together and giving the power back to the fans (sadly my first thought went to Taboo Tuesday’s which allowed fans to vote for matches…it was a disaster). The speech was solid and I was ready to hear how they planned to make said changes. What we got was a bit of a buzz kill. Now we ended up getting some things that we have wanted to see, but nothing about it was fresh or new. The things we got were purely results based. To start we got a beat down of Baron Corbin who had been the symbol of creative/leadership of Raw, however this is nothing new as we saw this the night before with TLC. If the McMahons and Triple H were serious about giving the fans what they wanted they would have never given him the opportunity. However, I don’t mind what they did as it was their way to embarrass him and show the fans that they hear them loud and clear. After this I expected some clarity in either backstage segments or for them to make one final big announcement at the end of the night to let us know that they have something big in store for us. It never came.
Instead we got a lot of the same matchups and feuds we have been seeing for quite some time now with one exception which was seeing Tyler Breeze getting an opportunity to go after the Intercontinental Title and he did not disappoint. What really would have made things seem like they were changing would to have Seth Rollins screw over Dean Ambrose during the match and have Tyler Breeze walk away with the Intercontinental Title. It would have been fresh, it would have brought more fuel to the fire and a way to get Seth away from the IC Title and on to the Universal. However Seth Rollins stayed in his mask until after the match in which he attacked Dean. I think the crowd would have went absolutely gone bonkers if Breeze walked away with it and the change would have been felt throughout the WWE Universe, but instead we just got a match for Breeze. This match is one of the issues that has plagued the WWE and that is they are unwilling to take chances. Breeze is an excellent in ring performer with a character that could be intriguing and has been intriguing, but they haven’t given him the proper time (Still bitter about Fashion Police not winning tag titles). This ultimately would foreshadow what to expect for the rest of the night which wasn’t necessarily bad, but was a tad underwhelming.
Now after this we got a lot of the same Lashley and Elias feud continuing with Elias getting his guitar shot in on Lashley only to have Lashley no sell it. Then there was the triangle involving Finn Balor, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre, which I don’t mind, but have it go somewhere like a future title shot. There were positives though out the show too. The good news was Revival finally won and they get a tag team title shot to boot. They got rid of Lucha House Rules which were just handicap matches and confuses me a bit because are the Lucha House Party supposed to be heels? It doesn’t seem like they are supposed to so I don’t know why Corbin decided to give them those rules, EXPLAIN YOURSELF CORBIN! We got video packages on returns of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens, which was my favorite moment of the night because I anticipated they would be out longer than what it seems they will be.
The best moment in reality was that they gave the women an hour to end the show and run a proper gauntlet match to determine the next challenger to Ronda Rousey’s Raw Women’s Championship. Now you can say “they didn’t give it to the person we wanted in Bayley or Sasha” or you can moan about them throwing them all in together in one big match, but this was a good call and executed well. They gave each wrestler a time to shine and get some offense in. They kept the likes of Bayley looking strong and Sasha for that matter too. In the end it would be Natalya to stand tall and this is the absolute right call. She is one of the pioneers of this women’s revolution and seems she get overshadowed by the four horsewomen. Natalya helped these four along the way and some great matches with Charlotte to help get them on the map. Oh and by the way she was also killing it with her feud with Ruby (who deserves some love too). Two nights in a row the women main event and I think the majority of the universe is overjoyed by this.
So there were positives to take away from Raw, but I think when we hear shake up we expect more than a group (I am keeping it kayfabe because Triple H you are killing it in NXT) that has largely been the problem remains intact and yet finds scapegoats like Corbin to blame for their errors. The good news is there is plenty of time to right this wrong and I think us as fans need to show a little bit of patience with it all. I doubt we see much change the next couple of weeks as we head into the holiday season and really they should save any big moments until after that time, but come January 7th we need to start seeing this change take place. We need a shake-up in rosters and I would love to see the Draft come back. I have had my reservations about this because it may be better to hold a draft until the new television deals come into place and allow the Networks to broadcast their own draft coverage, but a mini draft or a shake-up would be great. I would love to see Finn Balor move over to Smackdown and have a good feud with Daniel Bryan. Becky and or Charlotte needs to head to Raw and have new competition that matches up better with Ronda. Bayley and Sasha to Smackdown where they can become the first ever Women’s Tag Team Champions and take on the likes of Naomi and Lana, The IIconics, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville, etc. or give fresh competition to the Smackdown Women’s Championship. I would also love to see New Day or Usos head to Raw and The Revival head to Smackdown to give a new look for tag team division.
It doesn’t have to just be a shake-up of rosters either. With Triple H involved in the decision making of Raw and Smackdown, why not have his brand attack and legitimize themselves as the third brand? I could see the Undisputed Era making a move like that and beating down Seth Rollins or Finn Balor. The biggest thing though that needs to change is creatively. They cannot be dead set on just a couple of talents as main event talent, let the talent grab that brass ring. Finn Balor, Samoa Joe and New Day are probably the greatest examples of this. All should have been holding major singles belts by now, but they are constantly being passed over by the same few. Take chances! Give someone like Tyler Breeze the shot that you did Monday except give him a chance with the title. Don’t let great NXT talent flounder like we are seeing with Sanity, The Revival, and Almas. And for the love of god take the damn Universal Title off the part timer Brock Lesnar! A new year is just right around the corner will we see a new WWE to go with it? Or will we be disappointed yet again with empty promises? Time will tell, but I will remain positive and patient with it. I fully expect that when 2019 officially gets here a new WWE will be here as well…or so I hope.