As RAW went live Monday night, I was somewhere around 30,000 feet in the air on a business trip. As this was a last-minute trip, I had very little time to plan on how I would pull of watching RAW, much less squeezing the time in to write about it intelligently.
After a three hour flight, I began a two hour drive. While on the road, I started to do some math in my head. I would likely arrive at my hotel with enough time to catch most of the main event, possibly all of it if I’m lucky. As I pondered how I was going to figure out what happened on the rest of RAW, I came up with a fun idea: I was going to act more like a casual fan this time around.
The fact of the matter is that, especially when Monday Night Football is on, there is a good section of fans that tune in and out of RAW. The WWE has to find a way to grab these fans and hopefully retain them for the rest of the show. It’s why The Rock and Mick Foley will come back for no other real reason than to stroll in as a surprise to get people to change the channel.
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So what would happen if I played the following role: a more casual wrestling fan that has a good idea of what goes on week to week because I read recaps and watch the WWE YouTube clips to stay relatively up-to-date. This means that I would know Hell in a Cell is coming up and the big storylines surrounding the event, but as far as the whole three hours? Not going to happen, let’s see if the WWE can sell me.
I did indeed arrive in time to tun into the main event which was a street fight between the team of John Cena and Dean Amrbose against the Authority’s crew of Kane, Seth Rollins, Randy Orton. Yes, in my mind, I know this is practically a re-hash of week’s past, but I tried to shove that out. After all, I’m a more casual fan that may not have seen this match before and I do need to be sold that these guys are worth the money this Sunday.
My patience with the match grew thin in a hurry. Without context, I assumed the “street fight” was booked to give a taste of what Hell in a Cell would be like but without the cell. Instead, I got a regular handicap tag match in which it appeared that, more often than not, only Dean Ambrose remembered that he could break the rules because there are none.
Everyone, including the heels, who are supposed to cheat, stayed politely in place, grabbing on to the tag rope and waiting their turn. Even when a crazier melee eventually ensued and the heel team got the upper hand, everyone went back to their corners once again. Sure, eventually the cell came down to try and spice things up, but even when it did, Dean Ambrose went to his corner and waited to be tagged in once again.
For a main event that is supposed to promote and tease the chaos and danger of a Hell in a Cell match, it felt like there was none. It’s as if someone walked up to me and said “do you want to see the best firework show, a life-changing one, the likes of which you will rarely, nay perhaps NEVER, see?!” and teased it by shooting off a Roman candle.
The only thing interesting that happened in the entire main event occurred post-match in the form of a Seth Rollins Curb Stomp to Randy Orton. Remember, my casual wrestling fan self knows that there is some beef, so, hey maybe this is a bit intriguing. So after RAW goes of the air, I decide to see what else happened on the show and read a results recap. Immediately, I’m thrusted back into wrestling obsessive with a weekly column because I see that the winner of Cena/Orton gets a title shot and my brain about explodes from the leap in logic.
I try to calm myself though. It’s been a long day. Sleep and and checking the WWE YouTube page in the morning will allow me to stay within this casual fan role.
I awoke early, a routine I’m now used to as it is the time I typically spend putting the finishing touches on this piece every week. I opened my laptop and went to the WWE YouTube page and saw three clips uploaded. Three. That’s one YouTube clip per hour for the “go-home” show that’s supposed to convince me to pay for Hell in a Cell. Are you freaking kidding me?!
Even worse, the clips are of the main event (which I watched), Mick Foley’s cameo (heavily edited to cut down on time), and Rusev’s match/kicking a soldier in the face. So for me, casual wrestling fan thinking about giving WWE my money, I’m given less than seven minutes of additional footage to go off of. This makes no sense.
Eventually, I cave and spend my time watching a slightly speed up, cropped, pitch-altered YouTube video of RAW, which I assume survives because of those minor edits (by the way, HHH’s voice in this state, hilarious). Watching the show in full didn’t help matters and I quickly found out why the WWE only bothered to upload three clips from this mess as saying that the show was uninspiring would be generous.
If I happened to be one of those fans flipping between football and RAW, I’m not sure anything in this go-home episode would have sold me on Hell in a Cell. So often, I tell myself that the WWE does certain things to lure the casual fan in, but after this experience, I’m wondering if the WWE performs well on that goal as well.
Because here’s the rub: I know that Hell in a Cell will be a good show. Hell, practically every PPV in 2014 has (Battleground excluded, in my opinion). Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins will tear Dallas down and I’m hoping tickets will fall into an acceptable range in my tight budget so I can see that in person. However, I’m not sure the casual fan will come to the same conclusion.
Using ticket prices as an example, the prices have been falling in the secondary market at a steady pace, leading me to believe that people aren’t buying into the hype for the show. I wonder if these same people will even be bothered to drop the $9.99/month for a WWE Network subscription, much less the full $50 or $60 for the single-time PPV buy.
There’s good wrestling in the WWE. There are fantastic characters. The potential is truly limitless. I just wish we had the opportunity to witness this on a weekly basis.