RAW After Mania 2023: Return Of A Zombie

Gomez Addams is back so let the ruthless regression begin! WWE’s WrestleMania weekend is supposed to be a big grand celebration of wrestling that highlights everyone’s love of this weird thing we enjoy, and the Monday Night RAW after is unlike any other. At least that is the idea we’re all fed with nostalgia over the last 10-ish years. This isn’t an indictment of WrestleMania or even the idea of the sale that was nearly confirmed before night 2 began, it is plainly expressing my exhaustion over 6-ish decent months of wrestling going down the drain because of one man’s ego.

Let’s tell the story so we’re all on the same page and my editor isn’t lost. Last year following countless accusations of sexual misconduct, WWE’s founder and now returning chairman Vince McMahon retired in disgrace. As a result, his daughter would take over as co-CEO with Nick Khan while Steph’s husband and former wrestler Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque would take creative control following Vince’s immediate departure. It wasn’t immediate but soon after you could feel a change for the better in the viewing product. After all, Terra Ryzing led black and gold NXT to astronomical success before the heart failure in 2021.

SummerSlam came and went under the light creative changes of Levesque, months of consistent storylines were built and returns came back by the dozens. Morale backstage was reportedly sky-high, and overall fan reaction seemed to be positive. Then December blew in, when Vince McMahon had reportedly penned a letter to the board saying his retirement was the wrong decision and that he should return to facilitate a sale. January came and he returned as his daughter resigned from her position at the head of the company, rumors spread of a Saudi buy-out, and on-screen, WWE produced the closing chapters of its biggest story in decades.

Over the last few weeks, talks of the buy-out had died with rumors of Disney interest, Saudi money on offer, and possible Comcast expansions into wrestling. There were even talks of the owners of rival company AEW being interested in a conglomerate sale. Then WrestleMania happened this weekend and the biggest April Fools was a great night 1 with solid matches, solid booking, and generally, it was interesting up and down the board. Night 2 saw Vince’s son Shane return and injure himself. Others cut themselves open and of course, the story wasn’t finished when Roman beat Cody in the main event.

It is an opinion and an opinion I’ve seen/heard shared online, but Night 1 felt like it was booked by a French aristocratic grave digger and Night 2 was booked by Wednesday’s dad. If you haven’t seen the pictures of Vince at Friday’s Hall of Fame or the CNBC interview, get on that because the man that’s been grey-haired for the last 20 years is fooling no one with his Just For Men job. The straw that breaks the camel’s back for many I think is that following RAW, which doesn’t just have Vince’s fingerprints, he photocopied himself and made sure to catch every detail.

That’s an exaggeration but the supposed creative lead of the company that has made great strides to generate fan positivity over the last several months didn’t feel like he was there. He opened the show claiming “WWE isn’t going anywhere” in reference to the Endeavor (UFC owner) buy-out, but minute-by-minute over the next two hours it was noticeable that Vince opened his kissing booth business once again. A telltale sign was of course reported by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, as well as PWinsider and WrestlingObserver, noting heavy rewrites had happened hours before the show began with Vince’s heavy involvement.

Following the show’s three-hour run-time once again feeling like an eternity for the first time in months, “Worst RAW” began trending on that Dogebird app/site. The closing image said it all as Endeavor’s bank account dropped $9.1 billion and Vince pretends a grave isn’t what a 77-year-old thinks of, as Brock Lesner showed two little fingers to the crowd. This was a message undoubtedly from Vince to everyone who hoped he was retired for good and would stay away following his disgraced exit. In a statement to CNBC, McMahon said he would be involved in creative at a higher level but not “in the weeds.”

I think we can see where that level is, as it seems to be at the point where all the excitement for what is often the best RAW of the year is deflated like a leaky balloon. Cody’s opening promo after Paul gave his State of the Union made about as much sense as Vince’s choice of a mustache. The women’s division once again felt flat after some progress over the last few months, and Brock went from entertaining farmer to characterless psycho. I’m sure Vince and Chris Chibnall could get along quite well.

It was not a bad first night of Endeavor’s latest purchase… just a disappointing and depressing one. Especially given the returning executive chairman set to head this merger still has accusations and hush money payments hanging over him. That is something a close friend, a former client of Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, and the former president happens to have in common with Vince. The only difference is one of them doesn’t have criminal charges against him and instead is leading the company he left in humiliation.

What is next? Well, details are slim as I write this, though we know once again from Fightful at Sean Ross Sapp (probably via Tom Campbell too) two women’s matches were cut. We can also connect the dots on the Cody promo and the Brock-based ending. The biggest indicators will be the next two weeks and commentary: Reports since Vince’s departure noted why we saw so many rematches, and one of the biggest changes with the house that Terra Ryzing renovated was the free-er commentary over the last few months. Micromanaging may be the latest re-signing for Titan Sports.

At every other point in this man’s career, there has been a scapegoat. In the steroid trial, the doctor was the guy on the block. When talent left for WCW and WCW was beating the then panda Federation, it was the talent’s fault for leaving. When the booking was in the toilet, it was the on-screen authority figures that were admonished. When the misconduct happened, it was Johnny Ace before it was Vince on the chopping block. Now, one of them is back and making creative decisions. One of them isn’t receiving punishment for admitted wrongdoing.

Monday’s RAW for April 3rd, 2023 was what I think many people will for some time come to call the worst RAW in history. It is undoubtedly one of the worst of the last decade with fairer eyes. It wasn’t an awful RAW from a technical standpoint, it wasn’t the fault of the talent and it wasn’t the fault of the crowd. We as an audience have been trained to expect something of a special RAW the night after Mania. Those at home are told it is a ruckus crowd in the arena, we’re expectant like a new mother of returns and surprises like an anniversary RAW.

Instead, we got a flat crowd deflated by the nothing that happened (2 minutes of wrestling in the first hour), a lack of surprises, nothing moving us forward beyond Bad Bunny and Brock, and a return to whatever is going on in Gomez Addams’ head. Putting aside the reports and speculation that it is Vince booking the show again, this was a bad RAW for the night after WrestleMania. If this isn’t Vince or isn’t Vince completely, there is something wrong that has happened in the 48 hours between the end of Night 1 and the start of RAW. Maybe Vince and Paul can’t positively work together.

Going into (for lack of a better term) this endeavor with Endeavor, it should be exciting not just for wrestlers but also fans. Thus far, the talent agency that now owns both UFC (the biggest MMA league) and WWE (the biggest wrestling product) has put on what could be argued as two nights that left fans disinterested or disengaged, with the latter being one of the company’s worst nights on TV. Before someone climbs up me, I’m not comparing the death of a wrestler to this RAW. That is (of course) worse as are many other things Vince has done.

One of the world’s biggest talent agencies buying out the company of a scripted production powerhouse (with its own talent) that can do stunts, say lines convincingly, and can get people engaged should be the start of wrestling’s next big boom period. Contrarily, reports suggest talent isn’t excited, this entire editorial is of one fan’s opinion that is fairly evident (I think) and is being shared by a large number of people too. I’ve yet to hear many nice words said about this show. Night 2 of Mania even had highlights heavily praised, but RAW? All I’ve got is Bad Bunny.

Many of us hoped and begged that last year’s retirement was the end of Vince. We didn’t want to see his fingerprints again. Triple H has his problems and tropes as I’ll happily attest to even going back to the days of black and gold. Neither is perfect nor is the competition (don’t worry, I ignore Twitter), but one is proven to have progressed a bit making inroads to producing a regularly consistent show that I won’t want to skip or turn off. The other is a zombie as played by John Waters in the second act. This time with fake tan and hair dye, to start its revenge.