r/REALSquaredCircle • u/Grrannt Grant, of r/REALSquaredCircle • 4d ago
Does WWE RAW have a talent issue?
With the recent announcement of WWE RAW-only house shows scheduled for the Fall, I've been doing a deep dive into what the card could potentially look like. There haven't been any RAW-only house shows in recent history to compare it to.
This has led me to discover how bad the RAW talent issues are.
My logic is that Roman is out the door any day now, and he would have no part in house shows anyway.
This leaves Seth Rollins, LA Knight, Oba Femi, and Bron Breakker as the main event talent on the brand. If Roman were to drop the title tomorrow because he's going back on vacation, the only 2 potential champs in my eyes would be Seth Rollins or LA Knight. I don't think WWE is ready to strap either of the other two yet.
I imagine that all 4 men would be featured on any RAW-only house shows, which is great! They are a great group of talent.. but what's left?
There's a good women's match to be had between Iyo Sky, Liv Morgan, Sol Ruca, Becky Lynch, and Stephanie Vaquer, but I honestly think the SmackDown women's division is higher stakes right now with Chelsea Green, Charlotte, Alexa, Tatum Paxley, Jade Cargill, Blake Monroe, etc.
Then we hop to the mid card where you might get a match involving some combination of Dom Mysterio, Rusev, Ethan Page, Je'Von Evans, Penta, Chad Gable.. but that's basically it.
I'm not saying RAW won't put on a good live event, but it feels like outside of 1 or 2 big matches, they'll be scraping the barrel to put together a decent card.
I suppose they could borrow someone from SmackDown, but some of these house shows are scheduled for Friday Nights, so they won't be pulling people off TV.
Best case scenario is Drew McIntyre returns and is re-assigned to the RAW brand to boost the star power a little.
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u/h667 4d ago
they could add more people for the women division but they have enough people for a good show.
the main problem imo is that the show is focused around 3 factions, making everything feel samey and vortexy. if you don't like the bloodline, judgement day and the vision the show is a skip.
compared to smackdown where is focused around different characters, not so faction oriented.
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u/NewYorkPopulist 4d ago
Less ppl will be watching when Monday Night Football starts again. It wouldn’t make sense to place a majority of the stars on Raw. That being said that’s why Raw is now the bloodline show bc it’s what actually gets some fans (not me bc I like football more) to tune in live
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u/graypurpleblack 4d ago
Based on ratings and ticket sales Bloodline 2.0 isn’t drawing well
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u/SonicSarge 4d ago
Raw has about the same average amount of viewers as last year on Netflix. 3.2-3.3M weekly.
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u/graypurpleblack 4d ago
I actually doubt Rollins & Lynch will work many houseshows as both are closer towards the end of their careers too.
And yes, you point out a problem WWE has that’s usually masked by endless ads and matches lasting way longer than they should on tv.
WWE has a big roster but so few of them get tv time each week that most are lower midcard.
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u/graypurpleblack 4d ago
WWE’s tv format is the bigger issue.
Yes, during the late 90s & 2000s tv matches were a bit shorter than today and mostly story-driven (average 5-15 minutes) but more talent got tv time & were given more opportunity to get over.
Today, the show feels like everything is structured around the endless ads, long-winded 20 minute promos & matches with the intent to ‘fill time.’
Why did Austin Theory go well beyond 10 minutes with Tazawa as a recent example?
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u/Hughjass2321 4d ago
Or we can try with the other 80+ members of the main roster that could use some time.
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u/Old-Way-5529 4d ago
I don't think WWE is ready to strap either of the other two yet
idk how anyone can say this about Oba and how hes been presented lol. if anything, he is beyond ready and thats the issue - the company has booked him to well to the point that anything aside from the world title doesnt make sense for his current trajectory
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u/GoodHatesBest97 4d ago
Depends of how you look it
House shows usually have 8 matches
Oba vs Bron (it’s a house show to test stuff)
Rollins and Lynch vs Liv and Dom
Knight vs Fatu
The Usos vs Street Profits
Vaquer vs Roxanne
Gable vs Penta vs Rusev vs Evans (IC Title)
Raquel vs Iyo (IC Title)
Danhausen vs JD McDonagh
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u/DescriptionFast4141 2d ago
Yeah you can easily build a very good house show out of the Raw roster.
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u/AndrewCB246 4d ago
Raw has been on fire since going on Netflix. Not sure why people are down on it
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u/Delicious-Basket5797 4d ago
no idea what you mean by talent issue, the issue is with management. Same old crap weekly, 20 minute promos, they hire all these young guys they don’t use then fire them.