On Monday night, the Empire State Building lit up red for the 25th anniversary of Raw, a frankly surreal bit of mainstream recognition for the unreal. But also, a 25th anniversary isn’t contrived like, say, a 1,000 episode celebration. The last time WWE broadcast this kind of spectacle of its own self-regard was 2012’s Raw 1000. Years are real and measurable in a way episode counts aren’t. And where Raw 1000 had its share of returning old-timers and legends for cameos, the 25th anniversary show was swimming in them. Not least was the opener, which consisted of Vince McMahon heeling it up with his kids to the Brooklyn crowd before Stone Cold Steve Austin came down, delivering stunners to both he and Shane McMahon. It was delightful in a way which will still feel good five years from now, unlike the limp D-X intro for Raw 1000.
On that Monday six years ago, the 1000th episode of the show marked Raw’s transition to three hour episodes, a decision which has contributed to the sense of malaise which accompanies the show’s off-peak episodes (where peak episodes are WrestleMania and SummerSlam seasons).
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Three hours of pro wrestling each and every Monday, followed by two on Tuesdays with Smackdown, makes for turgid viewing, especially when they’re produced by a company so prone to seasonal doldrums as WWE is. The fact is that Raw is usually must-miss television, outside a couple 10 minute segments which WWE helpfully posts on its YouTube channel as an official reminder that cool things can still happen amidst all the trading of wins and meandering promos. As a reminder, Braun Strowman is their hottest property (even if they don’t fully realize it yet) primarily because what he does fits so well into those digestible bites of pro wrestling goodness WWE manages to slice away from the bloated Raw; his destruction of a truck netted 7.3 million views at the time of writing, a good five to seven times the number of views most of their videos get.
Before the 25th anniversary special, I rewatched as much of Raw 1000 as I could stomach. It was too long from the get-go. The pacing issues were immediately apparent. No number of yesterday’s stars could cover that up, at least not once the immediacy of their presence was gone. Yes, Raw 1000 opened with D-X, Bret Hart was there, and The Rock was in a big angle in the totally good main event between CM Punk and John Cena. There were also a whopping five matches for a grand total of about 28 minutes of wrestling. In three hours.
Still, the Strowman views don’t lie, and given how into the WWE Network, streaming, and social media the promotion is, there has to be a sense that they could theoretically leave cable television behind. A report in Variety hints at Facebook and Amazon possibly bidding on WWE’s broadcast rights, which are up for renegotiation soon. There’s a lot of corporate nonsense in there about content platforms and symbiosis, but WWE seems less than committed to USA, even as it pays lip service to its long-time home.
And there’s no way around the elephant in the room: Vince McMahon is old and seems restless. He’s registered a new entertainment venture which seems aimed at doing something with the defunct punchline of the XFL. A revamp seems like it could have slightly better odds given that the quality of the NFL mostly stinks, and that there’s a rabid, if small, group of the population who would go nuts for a Trump sanctioned, everyone-stands-for-the-anthem take on football. Dave Meltzer, while claiming no certain knowledge, stated on an episode of his podcast that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Vince sell out to someone—Disney, Fox, another corporation—in the next few years. Toss in the continuing global surge by New Japan and there’s a sense that WWE is on different, less sure ground than they were at the time of Raw 1000.
This was the backdrop for the 25th anniversary episode of Raw. It certainly felt like a bigger deal than the prior celebration of the self. But Raw fell into the nostalgia trap, as did I and countless other viewers. The legitimately fun sight of Austin delivering a Stunner to the septuagenarian Vince McMahon gave way to the Family Guy dynamic of pro wrestling pops: someone comes out, you recognize someone, you cheer, and they disappear. You thrill to the recognition, not the context or execution.
The nostalgia extended, disastrously, to space, as well. Someone at WWE decided it would be a good idea to broadcast from both the Barclay’s Center and Manhattan Center, the former to get 15,000 fans on television, the latter as a callback to Raw’s early days, when it was a staple at the venue. Only not much happened in Manhattan, save brief appearances by The Undertaker and D-Generation X, and a not terribly good match between the out-of-gas Bray Wyatt and certain to be overexposed Woken Matt Hardy. The rest of the time, the crowd—who paid hundreds of dollars for tickets—watched glorified dark matches and a big screen broadcast of the fun stuff going on at Barclay’s. It didn’t go well, with the crowd vociferously angry at the lack of action. Going to a bar to watch wrestling can be fun; it’s not $500 fun.
It would be a dour asshole, indeed, who says there was zero fun to be had at an event like Monday’s episode of Raw. There was some fun, just not enough. There was some substance, but not nearly enough. Paul Heyman summed it up at the end when he announced the arrival of Brock Lesnar: Lesnar wasn’t there for nostalgia, he was there to be relevant. Even at Raw 1000, The Rock stuck around for his match with John Cena at WrestleMania that year.
That substance may end up being Daniel Bryan. When he showed up with the Raw General Managers, he received a rapturous ovation. Here we are, years from his Wrestlemania moment and subsequent retirement, and he’s still the most over guy on the roster. That says an awful lot about WWE’s strengths and weaknesses: the weight of moments on a stage that big and gaudy can mean so much, but they still haven’t found someone to take his place, and it’s not down to a dearth of talent, but an unwillingness to ride the hot hand, whether that was Dean Ambrose two years ago or Shinsuke Nakamura on his debut.
No wonder, then, that the restless Daniel Bryan, who keeps threatening to come back if WWE would only clear him, is rumored to be both a surprise entrant in and possible winner of Sunday’s Royal Rumble. Even if it doesn’t come off, it points to the difficult situation WWE has created for itself and why the sand might be shifting beneath its feet, ever so slowly. Today is never as good as yesterday and, by definition, cannot be, because as soon as it is as good, it is consigned to yesterday. If it intrudes on the present, it still belongs to the past, an interloper into the now, owned and trademarked by World Wrestling Entertainment.
