WWE RAW: Why This Week Is the Toughest Episode Every Year to Book

The March 19 episode of RAW is the toughest of the weekly episodic show for a creative writing staff.

It will be the second-to-last episode of RAW before WrestleMania 28 and raises the issue of where the storylines should—and need—to be.

In today's WWE product, there is never more than four weeks of build to a pay-per-view other than WrestleMania. The build from the February Elimination Chamber pay-per-view to WrestleMania features six weeks of RAW and Smackdown programming.

When beginning the road to WrestleMania from a booking aspect, you know what the ending point is.

WWE's creative department knows what match needs to get made and likely know what the last thing they want the audience to see for free is before it's time to buy the pay-per-view.

This means that if you're a WWE writer you know what you want to happen on the final RAW before WrestleMania, known as the “go home” show.

Writing the episode of RAW that airs a week before the “go home” RAW can be challenging.

Due to the longer than normal build for these more prestigious matches, there is more time to fill.

All of the big matches for WrestleMania are announced no later than the second week of March so they can be properly promoted and advertised.

So one of two things happens when plotting out as best as you can the weekly progressions of the stories being built between characters.

The first is the second to last RAW provides a situation of a lot needs to happen to get the story to the right place for the go home RAW.

The second, and more common, is the week of having to put on RAW is an obstacle.

You have to address the match/feud just as you do every other week. However, you can't really do anything because it would spoil whatever moments you have planned that will be the last programming for the audience to view before WrestleMania goes on the air.

When the RAW becomes an obstacle, the audience gets brief promos that are repeating what has already been said, cheap interference in matches and/or obvious finishes to make the higher profile star look good as he is two weeks away from his big fight.

There are two matches that I think will be able to escape these common booking problems for RAW.

The nature of The Rock and John Cena's feud has been building for over a year.

These two guys could continue to hype a match for as long as need be due to their talents and ammunition.

Gimmick, comedy and parody all make up the promos for the WrestleMania main event, so I expect nothing less for the March 19 RAW.

As usual with the past weeks of Rock/Cena promos, some will like, some won't, but everyone will be talking about it. Good situation.

The second match that will have an easy time is Team Long versus Team Laurinaitis because we have yet to learn all of the participants on each team.

Since this match was decided upon some what last minute by WrestleMania standards, WWE will be able to use every RAW and Smackdown to complete the reveal of who is on who's team and the hype.

Some of these second-to-last week to WrestleMania problems are applicable to Smackdown, but it's on a much smaller basis.

RAW is the flagship show and where all the stories are acknowledged on WrestleMania, not all of the stories are consistently acknowledged on Smackdown.

RAW reaps the benefits of being the live show that has the top guys. RAW also suffers the consequence of filling the two hours every week on a month and a half build to the payoff—a time frame for story building that is very unfamiliar in today's schedule of the product.

The second to last RAW can be miserable due to poor writing.

WrestleMania is partially reliant on the superstars' abilities and partially reliant on how important the payoff of the feud is based on the talents of the booking.

I don't think using the second to last RAW is appropriate to accurately gauge how good WrestleMania will be like.

I do think that using the quality of the second to last RAW, one episode of WWE programming, is accurate to measure the overall talents of the creative staff.

You don't have to have chaos take place but come up with something that is logical but creative.

Easier said than done, but 16 writers get paid a lot to overcome writer's block. Perhaps it's too many hands in the creative pot, but that's another article for another time.

I was at last year's second to last RAW in Pittsburgh. It was the episode where CM Punk was threatening Randy Orton's tour bus and the poor actress who played Orton's wife.

Not a good show when that's the highlight of the night. Again, not an automatic sign but I did think WrestleMania 27 was middle of the road. Not the best and not the worst.

I was at the second to last RAW before WrestleMania 17. The RAW took place in Washington D.C. This was Paul Heyman's first RAW broadcast with Jim Ross replacing Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon made Trish Stratus bark like a dog in lingerie.

I enjoyed it and then went to WrestleMania two weeks later and felt I saw the most complete top-to-bottom WrestleMania ever.

So as you're watching the second to last episode of RAW that airs on March 19, take what you will out of the story progressions—or lack thereof.

Watch each storyline, see if a whole lot happens, a whole lot of nothing and see if you agree with my theory. Grade the episode of RAW and see if there is any correlation with your opinion on this years WrestleMania!

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