WWE has been going in a somewhat different direction since WrestleMania, and it is now coming up on its first Pay Per View since Roman Reigns ascended his throne as WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and also since Shane McMahon somehow ended up in control of Raw. While TV ratings haven’t shown it, Raw has been on something of a streak of consistently good shows lately, and with Payback one week away, we were hoping for a good go-home show to really sell what is looking like a pretty good show, at least on paper. And while Raw wasn’t a bad show by any means, it seemed to lack that certain energy that the last few weeks have had. Rather than a hot show to get people hyped up for Payback, WWE seemed content to put on a show that featured lots of segments that, while fine, were just kind of…there. It didn’t ruin the good work they’ve been doing on Raw in the past month, but it certainly wasn’t the show we were expecting to get right before a Pay Per View.
10. The First Person To Say “Brand Split” Gets Smacked
All right, so finally they’ve kind of acknowledged that Shane McMahon remaining in charge of Raw just because he happens to keep showing up doesn’t actually make any sense, and we’re going to waste time on a Pay Per View (which becomes less important because they’re only ten bucks a month now) letting Vince McMahon decide who gets to be in charge of Raw (and presumably Smackdown, but, you know). Obviously, because Vince is evil, he should choose Stephanie and thus re-institute The Authority’s reign of terror that has depressed wrestling fans everywhere for well over two years. But, of course, because this is WWE and they just can’t help but continue to turn Vince into less self-aware parody of C. Montgomery Burns, complete with trademark sudden changes of heart, we expect he’ll laud Shane’s social media support and somehow we’ll end up with Shane permanently in charge (well, barring any future matches with Triple H for control, which we totally expect to happen by SummerSlam at the latest). It’s too bad he can’t just point to Raw ratings to justify the move, because they’ve continued to go down, but it’s not like they haven’t made plenty of on-screen decisions without having to rely on actual facts. Although, WWE.com is running a poll asking who fans would rather see in charge, and when this was published, Shane had a 90-10 advantage over Stephanie, so it would be a chance for WWE to actually give the fans what they want rather than just pretending to.
http://www.wwe.com/polls/which-mcmahon-would-you-rather-see-running-raw Source: WWE.com