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This week's episode of Monday Night RAW was a historic one since the show was the first RAW to take place without an audience. The fact that that show was moved to the company's Performance Center in Orlando, Florida meant that WWE was forced into several changes on the night and only had to fill a little over an hour with live entertainment from their training facility.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused sporting events, concerts, and essentially all mass gatherings to be canceled all over the world and WWE is just the latest company to face some struggles because of the global outbreak.
Last night's episode of RAW proved how hard it is for WWE to push a show together without a crowd and was the second time that they had relied on footage from a show that was earlier in the year to fill a lot of their air time.
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#5. Over an hour of The Royal Rumble
The 2020 men's Royal Rumble match took place back in January and most of the WWE Universe has already seen the match and know that Drew McIntyre was victorious. When the commentary team fed to a video feed earlier in the night that was the men's Rumble match, there was a belief that it was just highlights, but this wasn't the case.
The actual match was more than an hour long and almost half of WWE's actual live show last night. That had many members of the WWE Universe complaining on Social Media, since many of them paid to see this match just two months ago. WWE played it in full and then continued with the planned final hour of the show, much like on SmackDown when the men's Elimination Chamber tag team match was replayed for much of the show.
#4. RAW kicked off with an AJ Styles promo recap
This week's episode of RAW was opened by the commentary team providing an update of the situation before cutting off to a replay of AJ Styles promo from last week when he broke kayfabe and verbally attacked Undertaker's family.
The crew then changed gears and Edge made his way to the ring. The whole recap was only put at the top of the show so that the company could reveal that The Deadman would be there later in the night, which was known anyway since the contract signing was announced last week.
The night should have begun with a recap of Edge vs Randy Orton or at least overplayed their feud so far since WWE had time to kill before letting The Rated R Superstar head out and deliver his promo. A promo that started with Edge throwing it to a video recap of their feud. He wouldn't have had to do that, if they just started with show with that package in the first place.
During the promo it was that finally revealed that Orton and Edge will face off in a Last Man Standing match at WrestleMania. That's if The Viper accepts the challenge.
#3. That Stone Cold Steve Austin promo
This was the antepenultimate episode of Monday Night RAW ahead of WrestleMania, which means that there are just two episodes to go before WWE gets into it's highest gear and the closing moments of last night's show were definitely out of place.
Stone Cold Steve Austin was called in to deliver a promo to celebrate 3:16 day since it was March 16th but because there was no audience in attendance it was awkward and it felt as though Austin struggled throughout.
Austin tripped over his words more than a few times while reading off cue cards before the bit ended with Byron Saxton taking a Stone Cold Stunner. This shouldn't have been the main event. Austin didn't become part of any storyline or add anything to the WrestleMania. His spot in the show should have been switched with Edge so that The Rated R Superstar's challenge to Randy Orton was the main highlight of the show.
The Austin promo was one of the lower points of the night, it's unknown as to whether or not this was because Byron Saxton was the only person hanging onto his every word or because it just didn't live up to the hype. Although Becky Lynch coming out to share a few beers with Stone Cold was a much needed injection of fun into the segment. Especially when she actually stepped on Saxton to get into the ring.
#2. One match all night
The WWE Universe was forced to sit through promos by Edge, The Undertaker and AJ Styles, Becky Lynch, Kevin Owens and even Stone Cold Steve Austin last night on RAW, but only saw one actual live match the entire night.
Rey Mysterio took on Andrade and was able to pick up a victory over the United States Champion with Asuka cheering on El Idolo on commentary. It was announced yesterday that WrestleMania will be taking place on April 5th from the Performance Center in Orlando, Florida but WWE has yet been able to present a full show from their training facility.
Last night was dominated by a Royal Rumble recap whilst SmackDown saw WWE repeat Elimination Chamber's Tag Team Championship match. WWE is not taking advantage of the time that they have on-screen and given that there are only two episodes of RAW left until WrestleMania, there is no way that all of the storylines that were originally planned will be in the right place by the time April 5th comes around.
#1. No women's match
The women of WWE have been pushing through barriers over the past few years and this took quite a hit last week when it was revealed that Nikki Cross, Alexa Bliss, Sasha Banks, and Bayley took a break in the ad break and ruined the entire illusion.
The women of RAW were not afforded the same opportunity last night since Becky Lynch and Shayna Baszler managed to continue their feud with an interesting promo exchange and Asuka appeared on commentary for Andrade's loss to Rey Mysterio, but there was no women's match.
There were packages for Charlotte's upcoming match with Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women's Championship but even though Asuka was on RAW there was no continuation of the feud between The Kabuki Warriors and Bliss and Cross, which is interesting since Asuka was on SmackDown and sent a clear message to her challengers.
The fact that there was only one match on the entire show was enough of a sign that this week's episode of RAW wasn't going to be like a regular one, but the women should have been given some kind of storyline progression.
