WWE's the best its been in years

[Messiah]

For the first time in a very long time, I sat through a three hour RAW (outside of having to go get food) and wasn't at any point bored out of my mind. I have been 100% against RAW being three hours since 2012, for one because I just don't think any television show should be that long and two hours fit great, and two because the WWE's booking just wasn't good enough. However, while last night is the first RAW I have watched in full in awhile, I have to say that I think the WWE is probably the best it has been since... well, I don't even know when. It's been a long time since top to bottom that the WWE actually appears to be putting near 100% effort into giving the fans an interesting and captivating product. Everything they put on our screens doesn't seem lazily put together. There has been a reason and a point to everything they do.

Something as simple as Cesaro vs. Cena is what I mean. It makes all the sense in the world for Cesaro to come out and defend Heyman against Cena, even if their alliance together was short-lived and made no sense. Chris Jericho interrupting Triple H and Stephanie McMahon fit and seeing Jericho return to his old ways, if only for a couple of minutes, made me mark for him more than I have since he began to make his spotty returns. I hated Bo Dallas losing but it still led to something for fans to talk about. The Reigns/Orton match was set-up logically; Orton didn't just turn to Reigns without first talking about his supposed to be title match vs. Cena. Like Hanley pointed out in another thread, even Brie Bella was re-hired in a way that made all the sense in the world. Paige/AJ and Ambrose/Rollins (even if there was no continuation of it on RAW) have both been simple yet very well booked feuds thus far IMO. Surprisingly, Wyatts/Jericho has been by far the biggest disappointment because it just doesn't make any sense at all but I would be lying if I said I still wasn't looking forward to it. I'm actually enjoying The Miz and while the reason for the stable might be dumb, at the very least they are attempting to do something with Woods, Kingston, and Big E (I have the unpopular opinion of thinking Big E is a solid talent). The only thing on RAW I can say I truly didn't care about would be the Cameron/Naomi fiasco and the Fandango/Rae/Layla storyline is STILL GOING ON, but at least there is some kind of story behind everything they are doing.

Now, of course, I am fully prepared for the WWE to be bad again. I charted it around WrestleMania time; the WWE goes through the same pattern every year of highs and lows. But I am also a lot more optimistic about that pattern breaking than I have been in the past, because for the first time in a long time everything on the show feels refreshing and original. And most above all else, it feels like the WWE is at least trying.

[Hanley!]

I agree to a certain extent. I'm certainly not going to gush over the product, because there's still so very much that they're getting wrong, in my mind. But I hadn't been watching Raw in a couple of years and after Wrestlemania this year I started catching the odd episode again. I think I watched Raw the last 3 weeks in a row and it's been years since I was bothered doing that.

So basically, I'll concede that WWE is at least watchable right now, which may not have been the case a few months ago.

The big thing that I appreciate at the moment is that they do appear to be building new stars. Wyatt has taken a major stumble from which he may never fully recover, but the Shield guys are all still doing great. And there are a few other names that WWE seem interested in pushing, even if they're not pursuing it right now: guys like Cesaro.

The booking has gotten smarter too, with less decisions that make absolutely no sense, less angles that end up going nowhere and less character dissonance. I don't feel like the show insults my intelligence at the moment, which is often a problem with wrestling. That being said though, the booking isn't always good either. It's lacking creative flair a lot of the time. The stories make sense and they're watchable, but almost nothing on their show is actually captivating. It's hard to get all that excited about the show when nothing seems to have that spark.

A lot of the time small details let them down too. I thought a lot of their booking decisions this week were very smart, but could have had a lot more impact in slightly different circumstances. I thought Bo's loss was a good decision, but it should have come after a short match rather than out of nowhere. I thought Orton's beat down on Reigns was an effective heat building segment, but it went a bit long and started to lose its impact. It still feels a little like they don't know how to fill a three hour show.

There are a lot of things that they did get right though. Jericho interrupting Stephanie was the first time I've marked for him even a tiny bit in years. I'm so over Jericho it hurts, but that moment surprised me and it was the perfect use of him. And I thought Triple H was great every time he appeared on the show, and he's generally been knocking it out of the park since Wrestlemania. I was disappointed Ambrose and Rollins didn't lock horns again on the show, but their stuff has been really good lately too. And while the Divas title scene is a little weird right now, I'm enjoying it still. It's nice to see two women with their own looks and their own personalities (and with a little talent) fighting for the title in a feud that they're taking seriously and the audience are taking seriously.

But while there have been good segments on the shows recently, there have been some terrible ones too. I'll be honest, I can't get through anything involving the Funkadactyls or whatever they're called. Or most of the Divas roster for that matter. I skip through anything involving Fandango. Adam Rose and Sandow are another two performers who can fuck right off, they're occupying television time each week that would be better spent showing more adverts. There are too many segments each week that I feel compelled to skip. I haven't been able to watch a full episode of Raw yet and that's a problem.

And I know this is a tired subject by now, but the other segments I'm often tempted to skip are Cena's. No matter what else improves in WWE, the top guy is still tired, bland, boring and hated by the fans. And that's always going to be a huge anchor weighing the show down.

[AaronReed]

For the most part, the product is better than it has been for a while. There are quite a few building blocks being put in place to carry the company, the veterans aren't overpowering the young guys near as much, and the mid card is being built up better than it has been in ages.

If WWE would only have RAW for two hours and dump SmackDown! they would have sooooooooooooo much more quality to give us week after week. That is the biggest problem with the product right now, I think; over exposure. Take the feud between The Wyatt Family and The Usos. They had some really good matches, and two PPV's really isn't that long of a feud for the belts. After playing out across 6 hours of TV every week in between, it got old really quick.