Is WWE Their Own Worst Enemy?

WWE Raw seems to be going from one mediocre show to the next, so is it time to stop watching their Flagship Show?

In recent weeks, maybe even months, I’ve found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with the product presented on Monday Night Raw. Following the WWE Draft, and the Brand Extension fans were full of optimism, that has all now drained away.

As a fan of professional wrestling for over twenty years, I’ve found myself asking one question in the last few weeks. Is it time to admit that I’m not the demographic that WWE really wants to appeal to anymore?

We now have the ability to watch wrestling from all over the world at the click of a mouse. From New Japan on one side, to Progress Wrestling on another, to Smash Wrestling in a third, it’s now so easy to find an alternative to the bland WWE product served up every Monday night. There’s just so much other wrestling around that I feel appeals to me more than WWE, and WWE is being left behind in the running that I don’t think I’d miss it if I never watched Raw again.

Come to think of it, if I was to never watch the WWE main roster shows again, I probably wouldn’t miss the product one bit.

Raw is supposed to be the “Flagship Show”, but more and more it feels like the same old stuff week after week. The same formula, with an overly long talking segment kicking off the show, actual wrestling feeling like an afterthought, and little that would make a nonfan want to watch the show.

Some of the biggest stars feel like they are treading water. In the last couple of years, Kevin Owens has been probably the best thing on WWE TV. He was the cocky heel that fans loved to cheer, the guy that had spent so long striving to reach the top. Now that he has it feels like he’s being held back by the way he’s booked.

One of the best wrestlers in the company, Sami Zayn, is quickly becoming a forgotten man. Throw into the mix one of the most exciting men in the entire professional wrestling world, Neville, is so far down the pecking order that he would be better off dropping back into NXT for a spell.

It doesn’t feel like WWE (or Vince McMahon) really knows where he wants a lot of the men and women on the roster to go. With a large writing staff, it baffles me that we have so many storylines that often end up going nowhere?

Around the start of 2016, rumors were flying around that three members of The Bullet Club were heading to WWE. AJ Styles came first and he now holds one of the most important titles in the company, the World Heavyweight Championship on SmackDown. The other two, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows, have gone from one of the hottest tag teams in the world, to two men wearing doctors coats and playing with pickled eggs. What in the world has that got to do with anything? More or less instantly, WWE took a mega hot faction and made two-thirds of them into jokes.

In all the time that I’ve watched WWE/WWF, I’ve never felt less like WWE really isn’t interested in what the fans think than I do now. The WWE Network is one hell of a great thing, but in a world where someone could spend a similar amount of money on a couple of other promotions, WWE really needs to do more to make fans feel like they should be spending that money on the company.

At a time when you don’t really have to tune into Raw every week to more or less know what will happen, WWE isn’t a must see product. There is little or no anticipation of what we may see on the show every week. But a promotion like Progress Wrestling, based in London, England, can put on shows that leave you desperate to witness them.