Monday Night RAW: Where has the excitement gone?

At seven years old, I really only had one hobby, one interest, one thing to look forward to weekly, and that thing was Monday Night Raw. Myself, my brother, my sister and my father would always gather around the television set on Monday nights to see what new thing Mr. McMahon had for us this week; how he was going to push the boundaries even further, keep us watching for even longer. I was always so into it, the WWE/F could do no wrong in my eyes, it constantly kept me on the edge of my seat. Maybe that was because I was only a young child, but a large part of me truly believes that that excitement was there for real, no matter your age.

I watched The Monday Night Wars become Raw Is War and from that into “Get The Eff Out” to the Brand Extension and everything that followed. I was able to see the Attitude Era, watch the Ruthless Aggression Era from start to finish and now, I am watching the PG Era take place.

The funniest thing was, as a girl, it was deemed odd for me to be so into Wrestling. Family friends would scold my parents for not teaching me to be more lady like, but my parents ignored it all because they knew like I did that Wrestling was a huge part of my life and was one of the only things in it. Keep in mind, at this point, nine years ago it was, Raw was still TV 14 which means not all of it was suitable for children, but I still enjoyed every moment of it. The violence, the barely clothed diva’s, the language, all of it was so different to the television I was “supposed” to watch, which made it so much more special for me. The WWF/E was my thing, something I could look forward to, discuss with my other family members who watched it and just something I could enjoy.

I truly became almost obsessed with it, I was so much into it. I owned the majority of the video games, playing them constantly, recreating the matches I saw on TV. I copied my favourite superstar’s taunts and catchphrases, not caring how lame I sounded/looked. I pretended to be The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Lita, Trish Stratus, The Dudley Brothers, Edge and Christian, Chris Jericho, D Generation X, Torrie Wilson, Stacey Keibler, The APA, The Radicalz and the list just goes on and on. I could sit here and name all of the guys and gals I watched on my television every Monday night, that’s how special it was to me back then. Hell, I even had a couple of WWF/E action figures!

And here I am now, nine years on. After seeing the Attitude Era happen, the Ruthless Aggression Era happen and the eventual transition into the PG Era, I could truly call myself a fan, a Wrestling Mark. I watched it, took it all in, and that was the end of it.

Then I began growing older and change, and through the Internet, gained more knowledge of the Ins and Outs of the WWE and became a sort of Smark. Not an a**hole one, who feels the need to poke holes in everything going on in the WWE right now, but one fond enough of the business to accept that the WWE is primarily Entertainment. Unfortunately, this could not remain enough, as I began to see this two hours of entertainment every Monday night slowly begin to plummet in quality as the PG Era progressed. Now, whenever I turn on RAW or even Smackdown, or hear about an upcoming PPV, I simply have to force myself to care.

Why?

Because it’s just not exciting any more.

The only thing that has truly stood out to me in 2010 is the Nexus angle, and look at how stale that’s getting! The bang of fireworks at the beginning of RAW, the opening video, the rush you get hearing RAW’s theme song followed by JR and The King welcoming you to Monday Night RAW, it was all gone. It no longer felt like one big celebration every Monday night. No, it became two hours of lame jokes, poorly acted segments and John Cena being Superman. As I continued to watch week in week out, I began to feel more and more like a Smark, and felt myself turning my back on something I grew up with.

I am not going to sit here and rant about WWE PG, as it has been done hundreds of times before and will no doubt be done again. And plus, that is not at all the intention of this article. My only criticism of the PG Era, however, is that it seems Creative have no idea how to keep the shows family friendly while retaining the quality of the previous Era’s, or even increasing it. I do not believe the problem is with the rating, the problem is with Vince McMahon’s lust for money which is ultimately going to be the downfall of the company one day, in many ways. Vince, along with creative have been trying way too hard to pander to the young kids in Cena tee shirts now and in doing so, have forgotten about the fans who put him at the top in the first place.

Now, I’m not saying it’s all bad, because it is not. The PG Era has certainly given us some good moments, for example; The ‘Viper’ Randy Orton, The CM Punk/Jeff Hardy feud and Punk’s whole “I’m Straight Edge so better than you” gimmick, The Triple H/Orton feud, HBK vs Undertaker at Wrestlemania and of course, The Nexus as well as other things.

So the problem is definitely not in the PG rating, because, as shown above, the product can be great without blood, excessive violence and Bra and Panties matches. No, I believe the problem is with creative trying way too hard to be “entertaining” whilst remembering that the show is primarily for kids now. One look at John Cena and you’d know exactly what I’m talking about.

And the Roster. Even though it doesn’t look like it, the RAW roster right now is pretty solid. There are several great wrestlers, but the problem is, they are not being used correctly, if at all. Remember the days of when it seemed like almost every Superstar on RAW had SOMETHING to do? When the Main Eventers were switched up from time to time and there were more championships for the Mid Carders to contend for? I see this as another big problem- the abundance of championships gave us a shift in who we saw weekly and the storylines etc. The European Championship, the Cruiserweight Championship, the Hardcore Championship? All gone, leaving RAW only the WWE Championship, the United States Championship and I guess the Unified DIVAS Championship, which has as much credibility as Hornswoggle’s Crusierweight Championship reign. There is also the Unified Tag Team’s Championships, which hasn’t been worth paying attention to in a long time.

It was always exciting watching all the different Superstars go after the wide range of championships, and with those being gone, it leaves Superstars like Evan Bourne, Ted Dibiase, John Morrisson and R Truth nothing to do but spend a few weeks feuding randomly with each other for no apparent reason and jobbing. There is also a lack of decent storylines/gimmicks, which I will be getting into at a later time, which also lowers the excitement and anticipation from week to week.

And the Diva’s. To be honest, the WWE might as well not even have any anymore, with the way they use them. The best of them, for example Natalya and Gail Kim either valet or do nothing. When was the last time you saw either in a match? Creative treats the Diva’s like utter crap, the only gimmick is “Lay-Cool” and none of them have an actual storyline. However, it looks like we could be getting somewhere with the Maryse/Ted Mystery Stalker angle they’re trying to introduce.

Going back to the PG rating, look at the jokes that are sometimes cracked. For the most part, the only people laughing are the eleven year olds and their mothers, who only pay attention because they have crushes on Cena anyway. Let’s look at SuperCena’s jokes about Nexus:

Lets be honest here, most of them weren’t even funny enough to be memorable. But he christens the “One Man Rock Band” Heath Slater, the ‘Chick From Wendy’s’, which is something you’d expect to hear on a playground. The only people this ‘entertained’ were the ten year old Cena Marks. And then on the subject of Justin Gabriel, Cena attempts a gay joke by claiming that Gabriel has an “Alternative way of thinking”. There’ve been many instances such as this where creative tries to push the PG rating as far as it can go in order to ‘entertain’, but the problem with this is, it’s difficult to make a decent joke, especially a decent ‘gay joke’ whilst remaining PG. And you know the ‘alternative way of thinking’ one went right over all of the kid’s heads.

Another instance of this is on a recent RAW where Cena attempts another crack at Gabriel’s sexuality by saying something to the effect of once Nexus is over, he can go back to being a crème filler at a Twinkie’s factory. Really? Really? Honestly Creative, I’m not sure how you’re disguising that one as a PG joke, because I’m not sure how PG references to anal sex are. And furthermore, we should not be hearing gay jakes in the 21^st Century, no matter how cleverly disguised they are. Sorry Creative.

And it doesn’t even stop there, it just seems to go on and has been progressing for quite a while. Now, most of the time, even the best RAWs have got nothing on the average episodes of RAW I used to watched growing and that is simply because the bar has been lowered.

As professional wrestling fans, scratch that, WWE fans, our expectations have dropped, because if they hadn’t, there are several people who would not even watch the shows anymore. Honestly, the 900^th episode of RAW just a few weeks back was almost enough to make me give up entirely, because it was that bad. It didn’t feel at all like a celebration, it felt like another episode of RAW but with more vignettes here and there. In fact, one of the only redeeming aspects of the show was CM Punk’s amazing promo. The guy should be a main eventer by now, not jobbing to the Big Show!

So please WWE, Creative, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, whoever! Just do something to make Monday Night RAW exciting again! Bring back championships, write some decent storylines, produce some decent gimmicks, just do something to show me why I spent my childhood with your company!

-Leva Lies.

This is my first article for B/R, so go easy on me!