Interinactivity: Why ARE You Guys Watching RAW?

Columns, Top Story

So, I woke up this morning and saw the RAW comments. This was originally going to be a comment, but it got a bit long. More than that, I found myself with an interesting question I wanted to ask you guys. I’ll put it at the end of my thoughts.

 

The Dean Ambrose “Burial”

I didn’t watch the show last night aside from Ambrose / Wyatt, which I viewed on the subway on the way to work this morning. I thought the match was pretty good – I was really pulling for Ambrose and was surprised when he lost, but not devastated. Wyatt winning is cool – he’s good, and he could use a win as well because he hasn’t won any feuds this year not against Chris Jericho. Him winning was an interesting twist, and maybe it would disappoint me more if I thought Ambrose was being “buried”, but obviously that’s ridiculous. Ambrose is bulletproof.

Me and Kue talked about this on the last TRA. Ambrose is a huge part of the shows, just main-evented two PPV’s and the crowd is not settling down on him. Do you think it would have been better for him, in 2014, to have won a bunch of matches, or to have done all of that? Wins and losses can matter, but the type of win or loss matters too – lest I remind you, Shaemus has an amazing win/loss record.

In fact, I’d say it’s likely Dean is going to be put into the main storyline – but even if not, I don’t really see him moving back below the upper-card. Maybe it doesn’t bother me because I like Ambrose so much, I can find him entertaining on a Miz TV episode – anyone see the one after he came back and was like “dude, there was an open door” before DDT’ing Miz and gently placing his limp form back in the interview chair?

And with Wyatt, if he had lost clean, people would say the same thing about him. Wyatt is good too, so I have no problem with him winning as he’s less likely to disappear again than if he had lost. Ambrose isn’t disappearing either way. And, Wyatt, the bad guy, winning the fued overall, legit, rarely ever happens and it was unexpected. I liked it.

 

The Authority Return “Swerve”

Regarding what I read happened with the overall storyline – no offense guys is intended here guys, but all of this is kind of what I was assuming would happen, and I sort of fail to see what’s so bad about any of this. The IC belt wasn’t helping Ziggler, everyone knows that – sure it sucks he lost to Barrett with his horrible fairy offence, but that was by no means a clean loss. And Zigg being fired is hardly him being buried as much as it is him being placed into the main storyline. I have no idea how Ryback or Rowan got in the same position (although with Rowan, it’s more of a pleasant surprise) but this is not really a bad thing for them either.

I FULLY expected the Authority back before Mania WAY back when they first announced the incredibly obvious “ONLY JOHN CENA CAN BRING THE AUTHORITY BACK IF THEY LOSE” clause into the story. And I figured that them coming back would set up the big usual Mania climax. Which is kind of exactly what’s happening here.

You got Roman, Ambrose, and Cena on the good side and Rollins, Lesnar and HHH on the bad side. Bryan will come back on the good side. Ziggler, Rowan and Ryback could come back on the good OR bad side of things if they turn, and I’d bet money they’ll be in the Rumble. I’m betting it will involve some other people as well.

Like I said, I only watched the one thing, but to me, the only things on the main roster these days that suck AND are featured, are Barrett and Ryback. Even the Uso’s / Mizdow stuff doesn’t sound bad.

However – while I can certainly tell you which parts of the WWE as a whole that I enjoy and don’t enjoy, I can’t really tell you what I thought about RAW anymore.

 

The Bottom Line

… because I’m not watching RAW anymore. I haven’t since before the summer – I think the only 2 things I’ve purposely tuned in for since then was the Ambrose / Rollins match with the cinderblocks and this Ambrose / Wyatt match from last night. I may have YouTube’d a few other things after the fact, but I don’t even remember what they were, so they were probably a waste of time.

I just watch the PPV’s. Many years ago, the man we all know as “Wrestling Facts” said to me in the chat during a show once that in the present day, RAW is just a wrestling-themed variety show that sets up the PPV’s. That really struck a chord with me, and I took watching RAW, even in the background, way less seriously since then. This year, I more or less quit entirely aside from the odd thing.

And guess what? I can still see stuff minutes or a day after it happens thanks to this site, WWE.com, Twitter, or anything really – and when was the last time anything surprising happened on RAW anyway? Sure, the occasional match from RAW can be good (not often, but it happens) but WWE has trained us for over a decade that the IMPORTANT matches only happen on PPV, all of which I’ve watched this year – and have enjoyed. The PPV’s recap everything from RAW that I didn’t see, which covers me even if I haven’t been able to read recaps. Video packages sum it up, usually within a minute, and I haven’t wasted 12 hours a month on RAW.

The thing is, I’ve also found myself enjoying the PPV’s and the WWE in general a LOT more since I’ve done that. I find myself in the incredibly odd position of actually defending a lot of this stuff.

Now, to me, a lot of that is because there’s a lot better talent (Rollins, Ambrose, Reigns, Ziggler, Bryan) on top than a few years ago (Barrett, Shaemus, Henry, Miz) – but probably a lot of it is just way less exposure to the product too. Maybe I’d be getting sick of Reigns like everyone else seems to be if I was watching him once a week as opposed to once a month. I don’t think that’s the case, but maybe it does have a bit to do with it.

 

The Question

I don’t want you to think this is a “why are you guys watching RAW if you hate it” kinda thing. It isn’t. You know me better than that. I have to ask, why are you watching RAW, period?

Why DON’T you guys JUST watch the PPV’s and keep up with the recaps or results of the RAW and other WWE shows that aren’t NXT? I’m not sure anybody that I’ve ever seen write for this site has been harder on WWE (or wrestling in general) than I have, and I’m telling you – watching just the PPV’s was a really solid move for me. I’m not saying every PPV this year has been awesome, but overall as opposed to previous years? Huge improvement, in my opinion.

I’m not saying that it’s awesome because I do it, but when the question came to my head reading the comments this morning, I legit wanted to know what you guys would say if I asked.

 

So…

1) Why DO you watch RAW?

2) Forget the implications to WWE if even a small portion of their current viewing audience thought this way, because let’s be honest, none of us really owe WWE anything – do you think that just viewing PPV’s would improve your general enjoyment of the WWE product?

 

I’m not trying to insult or offend anyone. I’m just curious. Let me know.

If you think I’m way off base, leave me some feedback.

You can even leave me a hate-comment if you’d like, but CB has talked me into covering TNA’s first Destination America show tomorrow night. So, my self-loathing is pretty much maxed-out already, and no comment of any nature is going to change that.

BD

BD writes about professional wrestling on Inside Pulse until he has to stop because he's about to have a stroke. Any “errors” that are made on his part are, of course, intentional and represent an artistic choice. He acts as a kind of fly paper for the emotionally disturbed.