On Monday Night Raw a few days ago we were introduced to a new segment by Shane McMahon called Raw Underground, which is essentially Fight Club.
Firstly, I really like the idea of this, it’s something different, which is nice to see during the pandemic where we have no fans to create an atmosphere. So new segments like this help take away the awkwardness of having the Performance Centre talent being a robotic crowd, making Raw much more tolerable to watch.
However, the execution could’ve been better. Firstly, Shane McMahon’s commentary on the mic was annoying. I think getting someone else to do that would be much better. Secondly, what do you actually gain from winning fights? There’s no title to win, so what’s the actual point of putting yourself in danger of being hurt. I’m supposing it’s pride but it doesn’t make sense to me.
It’s also disappointing that they got Lashley, MVP and Benjamin to crash the whole thing. This could’ve been a great way to build-up developmental talent in a time where fresh faces are desperately needed on Raw as we’ve been seeing the same feuds since the start of Corona era.
In my opinion, for this to seriously work, this has got to be brutal, just like Fight Club or actual MMA. We need to see blood and serious beatdowns. Because the fights are way too short to be believable. The lack of brutality makes this seem pointless as there are no rules, meaning we should be seeing an ample amount of weapons and foreign objects for competitors to cheat to win.
Apart from those few things, I think this has the potential to go far, especially in the third hour of Raw when the ratings seem to drop juristically each week. I also believe as its something new, we’ll see more fans stay to see what happens each week so this is a good move by Vince and the Creative Team to come up with this idea. We’ll see how it does over the next few weeks!
TheWrestlingFallacy 