WWE Raw: Are The Revival in Danger of Failing on the Main Roster?

With both members of the Revival having suffered injuries, they now risk becoming flops on the WWE main roster.

The Revival were arguably the best tag team in WWE NXT history. As a sort of throwback to the classic tag teams of the 1980s, Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder used old school wrestling psychology and creative thinking to win in the developmental brand.

Their abilities and booking led to them being one of the finest tag teams in all of WWE. In fact, their tag team wars with American Alpha and #DIY were among the best matches in recent memory. It was clear that they were to flourish in NXT under Triple H’s guidance.

But all of that has changed now that they’re on the main roster.

There’s a critical difference between NXT and the main brands: Triple H controls the former and Vince McMahon runs the latter. Triple H and Vince have different philosophies when it comes to how the matches are booked and how storylines are executed. Triple H’s NXT is basically wrestling with stories, while McMahon presents it in the opposite manner.

Moreover, the main roster demands a heavier schedule and more work overall when compared to NXT. As such, when Vince looks for someone to push on a regular basis, he looks at things from the perspectives of sustainability and profit. In other words, Vince looks at how much money he can make from a wrestler’s work, and how much mileage he can get out of them.

This is where the problem with the Revival comes in: both men have been injured in a very short period of time since their main roster debut. Plus, since their main roster identity is that of a tag team, they need to appear together or not at all.

As such, when one wrestler is sidelined with an injury, the other one suffers as well. This is why neither man appeared when Wilder suffered a fractured jaw and when Dawson suffered a bicep injury.

Now, injuries are being hurt are a regular risk of being a pro wrestler. But getting injured can be much worse for you depending on the timing of said injury. In the Revival’s case, their respective injuries came at the worst possible time. Wilder’s jaw injury occurred only a few weeks after their main roster debut. WWE tried to keep them relevant on the main roster by showcasing them in backstage segments, which saved them in some way.

But then, shortly after they started wrestling regularly on RAW again, Dawson suffered a bicep injury, which caused WWE to change their plans for SummerSlam at the last minute. It’s believed that the original plan for SummerSlam was a tag team match between the Revival and the Hardyz, two highly popular tag teams with loyal fanbases. This match would’ve been great, and would’ve done wonders to help the careers of both teams.

Now that the Revival are on the shelf again, they find themselves in a very dangerous place, booking-wise. Their recent string of injuries risks putting them on the ‘fragile’ list, which would preclude them from getting that much-desired main roster tag team push.

Vince McMahon is a businessman and sees his wrestlers as investments. To that end, he needs to see gains out of giving wrestlers pushes. If he invests money and time into them and they get injured, that’s lost money and wasted resources.

After all, look at what happened to Finn Balor.

He suffered two notable injuries since being on the main roster. His first was a devastating shoulder injury that left him sidelined for an incredibly long time. Then, weeks into his return, he suffered a concussion at the hands of Jinder Mahal. Since then, Balor has been booked in less-significant feuds than he was previously.

WWE Raw: Are The Revival in Danger of Failing?

By Alexander Podgorski | Aug 27, 2017

With both members of the Revival having suffered injuries, they now risk becoming flops on the WWE main roster.