This week's show was bad overall. It wasn't a snore like the past two weeks were but it was terrible as a RAW After Mania show. Best thing on the show might legit have been the Corbin Snickers ad.

For a RAW After Mania show, it really lacked in surprise debuts and NXT call-ups. Only surprises ended up being the return of Ivar and Charlotte.

The worst part is RAW After Mania usually is the highest viewed RAW show of the year and after this piss poor effort done, this year probably going to break the record for quickest chase away of all those new and returning viewers.

Wish Enzo and Cass showed up and cut a promo on The Miz

it's almost like Vince is intentionally killing his product.

After generally finding the two-night Mania to be an easy watch, Raw gave me pretty much nothing to make me want to go back to following full-time. And hell, now I get the PPVs for free on Peacock and they're gonna recap everything that happened in the last month anyway...what's the point in sitting through this weekly slog?

I'll check out SmackDown on Friday to see if it holds my interest but I'm right back out on Raw for the foreseeable future.

There is no point to watch the weekly shows, they exist to fulfill contractual obligations rather than put on a good and/or fun show. I'm PPVs only for now with WWE...first time I've done that since the era when Sheamus/Alberto Del Rio were wrestling like every week.

WWE legit needs to clean house with its Creative team, especially canning Bruce Prichard from the job.

For all of its main roster-like booking flaws that got exposed more since going to war with AEW, NXT's Creative team at least can put together way more interesting weekly shows than whatever is going down with the creative process for RAW.

that's honestly what I've been doing for the past 2 years. I only watch the PPV's and not even all of them because lots of matches repeat themselves (to an extent). You're right, they recap everything on the PPV and the "feuds" feel fresh to me because i haven't watched them on tv for the past 4-5 weeks or more

Thing is, creative isn't the problem. We've heard from multiple sources that the writing team genuinely comes up with good ideas, but they get shot down by vince.

It's an audience of one and will be until he's six feet under.

For sure, Vince is the main source of WWE's creative struggles over the year but their general mentality towards booking is just as big of an issue.

The whole thing just needs some serious rehauling even if it means moving away from Vince's vision of what wrestling should be. Even NXT has been showing signs of getting too bloated in creative and leaning more into main roster style booking mentality than before.

The best thing that could have happened to WWE was if XFL 2.0 was successful. Vince could have fooked off with those duties to micro manage but it's not how it worked out. It seems like he's in good shape and I don't see him selling off to NBC or FOX in the foreseeable future.

It'd be interesting, tho. I'd be curious to see SNL without Lorne Michaels, too.

Even if it was successful, Vince probably would still have been just as hands on with WWE since the guy is notorious for not taking a break from WWE work unless its beyond his control.

There were reports from the sheets of how some in WWE were shocked Vince did not scale back on his WWE work while the XFL revival season was underway. The original plan was for Triple H to take over creative duties while Vince was busy with the XFL but Vince did not allow that to happen under his watch.

Vince really feels like one of those guys that would die within 6 months of retirement. As long as he keeps to the grind though, he might outlive Shane.

Vince's father had a similar mentality towards work and retirement.

Think him starting to show signs of becoming seriously ill is what opened the door for Vince to eventually buy the company. He didn't really get to enjoy retirement since he passed away only a couple years later from cancer.

You know sometimes I've actually wondered if Vince hasn't saved us from even worse booking a lot of the time. I know he has also come in and insisted on ridiculous things but he just doesn't seem the kind of guy to waste a bunch of money on writers if he is just going to rewrite everything himself in the end. And considering how often he fires people and shifts around those in creative it makes me generally think he cares about the quality of what they present him. I dunno, just seems strange that he'd waste all that time and money.

That's actually happened quite a few times in recent years based on the sheets.

Like the 24/7 title existence was only due to Vince picking the least worst idea from a list USA Network pitched to improve RAW.

Then there was a plan for the Fiend vs. Orton feud at the Royal Rumble I think that got dropped because Creative kept pitching bad ideas and Vince couldn't find a way to make any of them work.

Exactly. I legit wonder if he is actually the problem. What if like 90% of his rewrites are actually way better than what booking comes up with and we're all over here bad mouthing Vince? I give Vince flak all the time but had a conversation with someone during mania that made me think about this more.

Based on all the stories from the sheets and former writers, he's still the main problem of their creative and booking struggles over the years but every so often Creative manages to come up with stuff that's even worse than what Vince would do.

Like 205 Live's turning into a mostly meaningless or directionless brand after the trio of Cedric, Murphy, and Ali got drafted was all Triple H and 205 Live creative team's doing since Vince had nothing to do with the brand after a few months or so into its existence.

Moxley told a story about how when he turned heel, a writer handed him a promo which included the term "pooper scooper" and he demanded to get it changed because he knew if Vince saw that final promo, he'd find the term pooper scooper hilarious and it would then become something he has to say every promo.

So while Vince might change some bad ideas from creative, everyone knows he has a very sophomoric sense of humor and won't hesitate to run that stuff into the ground (see: Nia's hole, and now last night Nia tripping over)

I watched the final hour of Raw last night and I didn't enjoy it at all. WWE TV is stuck in a hell unto itself. It's far beyond a rut. It's in a self abusive and audience entrapping cuck of intelligence and integrity. The painful predictability of the booking is like asking you to enjoy a root canal. All of this made 10x worse by no fans and the over produced nature of TV since the pandemic. WWE has seemed to stop trying to have any real sense of storytelling within wrestling, and continually acknowledges that the workers are working and thus nothing really matters. Some performers actually care and have the talent to progress a story (Drew, Lashley) but some are at the mercy of the heavy hand of creative and can't swim for sinking. Ech...

Now that MVP's presumably recruited T-Bar and Mace into The Hurt Business as hired guns, I would laugh so hard if he brings Shane Thorne back again and they just completely gloss over him being Slapjack.

The Viking Raiders? I totally forgot they even existed.

Alexa Bliss is now a rep of Fazbear Freddy's. Seriously they stole her story from fucking Five Night's at Freddy's.

Even Reddit seemed to dislike this show and Reddit generally loves almost everything

Wow, Raw tripled AEW's ratings

R.I.P

Preview for tonight's show:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can't believe we traded <a href="https://twitter.com/SlapJackRTRBTN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SlapJackRTRBTN</a> off of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWERAW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WWERAW</a>. So much for the ratings tonight.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RAWTonight?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RAWTonight</a></p>&mdash; WWE Creative Humor (@WWECreative_ish) <a href="https://twitter.com/WWECreative_ish/status/1384221012187746308?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

:lol: at a recap video playing for something that legit happened a minute or two ago.

WWE really must think their fans have the attention span of a fly with how they handle recaps during shows.

Make that 2 recap videos aired for the same thing that happened like 5 minutes ago.

Way too much talking soo far on tonight's show and now have to deal with an annoying Charlotte promo.

Something like maybe 5 minutes for wrestling and the rest has been all talking and commercials.

This Riddle/Orton feud has potential. Pretty intrigued by it.

"I JUST PASSED YOU BRO VROOOOOOOOOOOM"

:lol: at Asuka calling Charlotte a "beeeeeetch"

That was the only good part about a boring Charlotte, Rhea, & Asuka promo segment.

Riddle is the annoying neighbor kid from Home Alone :rofl:

Not sure why Rhea was even out there. Like she brought a microphone with her just to say she will watch Charlotte and Asuka later in the show?!?!?

Someone in WWE really has a sudden fascination with handicap matches.

WWE's booked that type of match for one of their shows almost every week for the past month to month and a half.

Ouch at the welts on Orton's chest from Riddle's chops. Its not WALTER tier bad in terms of bruising and hand marks though.

That was a pretty slick reversal of the RKO.

Riddle vs. Orton was all right. Pretty much was an Orton style plodding match but actually good for once.

Riddle beating Orton was a surprise though.

BROS!

Nia Jax...flippy tv channel

why is the nia beast on every show