WWE Raw: Burning Questions to Address After November 16 Show

With only six days until Survivor Series on the WWE Network, it was clear that Vince McMahon and his crack staff of writers had ahead of them the unenviable task of selling the as-of-yet uncompleted card to the masses.

And, by and large, they failed.

Sure, the spotlight was put on the WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament, but other than three really outstanding matches, WWE did little to create any tension between the final four competitors. Worse yet, only one Superstar was really presented as a credible option to leave Sunday's show with the top prize in the sport.

Outside of more promo time, WWE accomplished nothing as far as furthering the feud between The Wyatt Family and The Brothers of Destruction.

And finally, a contract signing featuring the WWE Divas involved in this weekend's big title match was a nice way to prove that the women can do other things besides wrestle in five-minute matches every week, but while McMahon deserved kudos for giving them the chance to do so, putting them in the main event segment was a questionable decision.

On a night where WWE Creative really needed to tie up the loose ends and present one last major push for Survivor Series, it faltered, leaving several burning questions to linger.

Credit: WWE.com

1. Why Expose Charlotte's Weaknesses While Supposedly Trying To Hype a Huge Title Match?

One of the biggest problems with the contract signing that closed out Monday's broadcast was the fact that it completely exposed Charlotte's lack of comfort in live, elongated promo situations.

NXT had protected her, as she delivered her promos mostly in backstage and pretaped segments. Much like Paul Heyman did with ECW, Triple H took care not to expose the weaknesses of his talent, instead opting to accentuate their positives.

It is almost like the writers behind the main-roster product to do the exact opposite, putting their talent in a position to fail.

Charlotte came off as lost, nervous and visibly shaken when she even tried to approach the subject of her late brother, something that was likely written into the segment's script. 

So why go there? Why put her in that position to be exposed as the still fairly green talker that she is rather than allowing the cocky, arrogant and verbally ruthless Paige to carry the segment on the stick? Charlotte could have easily snapped, and the brawl that ultimately did occur could progress from there.

It was a questionable decision on the part of an owner and CEO who should be worried, at this point, about constantly strengthening the star power of his talent rather than weakening it in the eyes of the fans.

What should have been a watershed moment for the WWE Divas was, instead, another head-scratching booking decision that did more harm than good.

Credit: WWE.com

2. What Was the Point of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship Tournament?

On October 26, Roman Reigns defeated Kevin Owens, Alberto Del Rio and Dolph Ziggler in a No. 1 contender's Fatal 4-Way match.

Replace Ziggler with Dean Ambrose and you have the same field from that match in the semifinals of a much-hyped tournament to declare a new WWE world heavyweight champion.

So why even bother with the tournament?

Surely, if the goal was to replace The Showoff with The Lunatic Fringe, there were simpler ways to do so.

Instead, WWE Creative forced fans to sit through a tournament featuring 16 different Superstars, with the final four being painfully obvious from the get-go. The fact that three of those four competitors previously competed in a No. 1 contender's match to determine Seth Rollins' opponent at Survivor Series shows just how little progress has actually been made in three weeks.

In fact, WWE is right back where it started, essentially rendering the tournament obsolete and three weeks' worth of television meaningless. 

At a time when the company should focus on bringing fans back into the fold with exciting stories and intriguing happenings, it opted to hold a tournament that ended up right back where things originally left off almost a month earlier.

Were the tournament matches outstanding for the most part?

Absolutely, especially the ones that did not involve Del Rio.

But great matches are hardly at a premium today, given the quality of the performers who make up the current WWE roster. The company needed to create exciting television if it was to stop the recent ratings slump, and instead it reminded the audience of just how stagnant the product is by reaching the same conclusion it had 21 days earlier, prior to Rollins' disastrous knee injury.

Credit: WWE.com

3. Would It Not Have Been Smart To Reveal Which Wyatt Family Members the Brothers of Destruction Will Face at Survivor Series?

One can argue that WWE is trying to use mystery to entice fans to purchase WWE Network or the Survivor Series pay-per-view to find out who Undertaker and Kane will face from The Wyatt Family, but in the long run, it will likely bite the company in the backside.

The truth is, today's society likes to have a clear understanding of what it is purchasing. No one tunes into a UFC pay-per-view based on the idea that Ronda Rousey's opponent will be revealed midway through the broadcast. Sure, she has considerable star power all on her own, but fans still like to know her opponent has some minute shot at beating her.

With the co-main event of Survivor Series, no one wants to be negatively surprised. Fans don't want to see Undertaker and Kane wind up wrestling Erick Rowan and Braun Strowman, however unlikely that is to actually happen.

They want to know that when they plunk down hard-earned money to watch a pay-per-view that they are going to be rewarded with a quality match.

Is it likely Bray Wyatt is involved? Sure, but that is not a risk that fans are always willing to take.

With only six days to go until the major event, the audience should have a clear idea of who is going to compete. Instead, fans are being asked to have faith in a WWE Creative team whose wildly inconsistent booking has been repeatedly scrutinized over the last decade.

And rightfully so.