5 ways for the WWE to improve Monday Night Raw

Monday Night Raw has been WWE’s flagship show since it debuted back in 1993, with the who’s who of professional wrestling having entertained the masses throughout Raw’s run so far. But now? Yeesh, talk about a tough watch.

Like any TV show, particularly those that have been around for so long, Raw has had its fair share of ups and downs, but right now fans are finding themselves stuck with a product that is as bad as its been in a long, long time. And that’s something that has not helped due to the fact that SmackDown is so often giving audiences some great pro wrestling action, and NXT is knocking it out of the park each and every week.

Worryingly for WWE higher-ups, the November 26 edition of Raw drew a wince-inducing 1.68 rating for an episode that many fans and journalists have labelled the worst Raw episode in the show’s 25-year history.

While we wait for this week’s rating to come out, it can at least be said that the December 3 Raw episode was an improvement on its predecessor in terms of quality – even if that’s not exactly saying much.

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So, what to do with a problem like Monday Night Raw, huh? Here are five simple suggestions to try and jump-start the WWE’s red brand back in the right direction.

#5 Less Repetition

It’s one thing to repeat something that was at one point good, but to be repeating segments and matches that were dull and boring the first time around? Yeah, that’s just asking for trouble.

For the past month or so, it feels as if the Raw brand has been stuck on a repeat cycle of Elias butting heads with Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush, The Riott Squad beating down Natalya, Baron Corbin dominating the weekly show, Bayley and Sasha dishing out forehead-slapping putdowns, and Finn Balor smiling maniacally.

Lets face it, none of those things exactly make for must-see TV. But still, we keep seeing the same content regurgitated form week to week.

Sure, a weekly wrestling show is always going to feature some form of repetition due to the very nature of how feuds and rivalries work, yet the cycle we’re stuck in right now is one that nobody has asked for, nobody is entertained by, and nobody gives a damn about.

When the majority of your three-hour broadcast is constructed this way, it’s almost as if you're goading your viewers to change the channel, and given the current state of the Raw ratings, that’s exactly what many are indeed doing.

#4 Give the fans people to get behind

Right now, the Raw roster is in a state of flux. And to be fully fair to WWE, they are having to adapt to the unplanned absences of two of their most popular stars; Roman Reigns stepping away to battle leukemia, and Braun Strowman out of action due to surgery.

With that said however, one glaring problem with Monday Night Raw is that there are not even a handful of superstars who are positioned in a way to make fans want to get behind them.

Clearly, Seth Rollins is the hottest babyface act on Raw right now – as has been the case for the past year – but other than that, there’s only really Ronda Rousey who is being fully embraced by fans.

In years gone by, there have always been a slew of stars at any one time who have the fans rallying behind them. Back in the early ‘90s you’d have Hulk Hogan on top, with names such as Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, and the Legion of Doom all getting 100 percent backing from fans elsewhere on the card.

As the decades have gone on, there has still always been a roster that has plentiful acts whom fans can relate to and fully embrace and cheer on. Nowadays, not so much – particularly when just solely looking at the Raw brand.

If you take Rollins and Rousey out of the equation, seriously who is there left for the majority of fans to get behind? And when there are no stars who you gravitate towards and take in as “your guy” or “your girl”, that’s when fans have little investment in the product, minimal reason to keep watching, and all the more reason to switch off.

#3 Dean Ambrose

Even before his recent stint out injured on the sidelines, many wrestling fans had been calling for Dean Ambrose to turn heel. The Lunatic Fringe act had become stale and almost served as a parody of what Ambrose once was.

Those same fans all likely sensed that a heel turn was on the way shortly after Ambrose’s return to action, but we were all left gobsmacked when he brutally attacked Seth Rollins on the very same night the pair’s Shield brother, Roman Reigns, announced that he was battling leukemia.

It was shocking, yet it was an absolute masterstroke from the WWE in terms of maximising the heat directed at Dean.

Nowadays, it’s so hard for a performer to actually be properly booed and hated, but the actions of Ambrose saw the fan-base go from disbelief to utter disgust – and with that, a great heel was instantly crafted for the Raw brand! Sadly, the weeks following that turn have seen the ball well and truly dropped on this front.

For those familiar with Ambrose from his Jon Moxley days, you’ll be well aware that this is somebody who is a brilliant and intense talker who can have you eating out of the palm of his hand, and wildly hating him. The point being, Ambrose has all of the tools needed to be the greatest heel in WWE today.

Instead, the momentum of the former WWE Champion’s heel turn has lost a whole load of steam as we’ve seen Ambrose base so much of his verbal outrage around WWE fans being smelly.

Let Ambrose off his leash, let him be a serious, calculating, intense heel, and then watch Raw’s main event scene get a fresh kick in the right direction.

#2 A full time champion

In addition to the Raw brand currently being way short of individuals or teams that fans fully want to get behind, there’s also the feeling that there isn’t really much on the line on the red brand. And by that, I mean there’s a gaping hole where the Raw roster’s mountain top should be.

That mountain top? Why, of course, it’s the Universal Championship.

Despite losing the belt to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 34, the Universal Championship is once again around the waist of Brock Lesnar. Thus, we all know that we won’t be seeing the Universal Championship on a weekly basis or even likely a monthly basis.

Realistically, you’d have to imagine that the earliest Lesnar loses the gold would be next year’s Royal Rumble, with WrestleMania 35 seeming a more likely location for the big title change – particularly if those rumours of Seth Rollins challenging Paul Heyman’s Beast prove to be true.

Regardless, one of the main reasons Monday Night Raw currently feels so directionless is because the weekly TV show rarely makes it feel as if anything is at stake for its superstars, which is largely a result of the brand’s biggest prize being out of sight and out of mind.

#1 NXT call ups

If you asked any wrestling fan to describe the current Raw product, you’d likely get responses such as bland, boring, dull, stagnant, repetitive, uninspired, and channel-changing. Right now, the WWE’s red brand feels far too easy to leave out of your weekly viewing habits.

One way to bring viewers back onside and to make this a far more entertaining watch – bar reducing the show’s run-time to 2 hours – is to inject some freshness into the Raw roster. And how better to do that than by calling up some names from NXT.

Just who from NXT is primed and ready for a spot on Raw is certainly an interesting topic of debate, and then there are the worries of just how badly the main roster may use such NXT talent (see: Bobby Roode), but the supposed developmental arm of WWE is the most logical place to turn to in an effort to turn around Raw’s fortunes.

The one obvious name who jumps out as being ready for a move to Raw or SmackDown is Aleister Black. While he’s still got a few loose ends with Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, the former NXT Champion is as ready as he’ll ever be to make the step up to the main roster.

If presented so from the off, Black could instantly be seen as a legitimate main event talent – that’s how good he is!

And while we’re tossing ideas around, how about Undisputed Era turning up on Raw and running roughshod? That would certainly, err, shock the system…