so did the bookers/writers.

Oh wow watching The Revival vs The Club in this Manhattan Center old school set up is totally like going back in time, amazing.

With Jr. and King.... this good stuff.

I think Finn Balor and The Club should turn heel around WM and take on Roman and Cena later in the year.

Well the tag match was too short to mean anything.

Yeah! I am enjoying the fact that Balor's shtick is now not limited to smoldering and adjusting his jacket's collar.

I hate the Balor Club name. Should become Bulletproof or just The Club again.

Yeah man, what is it about people who adjust their collar that we all inherently hate?

"The Club" makes sense. Imagine how weird it'd be if Styles got drafted to RAW and he joined "The Balor Club". Not only would it feel odd, he'd drop down a notch on the pecking order, becoming Balor's subordinate.

As much as I love HBK and hate having to shit on him for any reason, that "WE AIN'T AS YOUNG AS WE USED TO BE, HARDY HAR HAR!" shtick he does every time he cuts a promo now is SOOOO bad. It's sadder to watch than current era Jerry Lawler on the mic.

Eh, he's just following the scripts. Considering half the show was just a remake of Raw 1000, they rehashed a lot.

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RAW ended up hitting its highest numbers in almost 3 years. First time in a while it swept the top spots for rankings, all hours were 4+ million, and a massive increase for yearly comparisons.

For some reference, RAW 1000 had around 6 million as its average.

Imagine getting that audience at your fingertips for a special event, then presenting that show to try and get them to stick around next week.

Woof.

Listening to a Wade Keller clip and brought up the theory that WWE didn't want to do too much from the Manhattan Center on TV because it would make people clicking over think WWE is "small time". Considering how WWE comes off as the most insecure company imaginable at times, I can see that being the case. It's still funny that they did a 2 arena show and didn't plan it out better though.

That makes sense, until you begin to question why the WWE booked the venue in the first place.

I don't know whether the ratings news is good or bad for the WWE. Is it bad that so many people who gave them a(nother) chance saw such a crappy show? Or is it good that their expectations are going to be low going forward?

Well, they went over 6 million with a much better Raw 1000 show in 2012 and we see how well they did at keeping those people around.

It does show that there is still an audience that enjoys WWE and wants to like it and watch it, but that what they serve up every week just isn't good enough.

Good, exciting TV and those fans are willing to come back I would bet. I am certainly one of them

They probably had the idea and then booked it blindly without any forethought and then scrambled trying to figure out what to do and ended up with a huge clusterfuck. It's a very WWE thing to do.

They promoted it like crazy too. People who watch weekly can have their opinion on whether it was a good Raw or not but it definitely did not live up to the hype for someone who tuned in out of curiosity after seeing it promoted on Fallon or something.

If you were not really a fan but watched last night what would make you want to stick around and continue to watch?

Quote from a TPWW "When did you get hooked on wrestling?" thread 20 years from now: "It was the night of the Raw 25th anniversary show. I saw it advertised and tuned in halfway through to see a Titus Worldwide vs Slater and Rhyno match. NEVER LOOKED BACK."

Probably both to be honest.

Good - WWE can uses this during the bidding wars for the next tv contract to show they have a lot larger pool of viewers than their weekly numbers suggest. Also people are still very interested in past stars which is why WWE still loves to trot them around, especially for Mania.

Bad - WWE likely blew their biggest chance in years to keep those viewers with how terrible the show was in general. Also bad the WWE could end looking at these numbers and think more focus on part-timers is the solution to their problems.

That's a very good point. It'll be interesting to see the rating next week.

That is true. By applying logic in the first place, I was handicapping myself.

I don't know, truthfully. I mean, the third hour was rated highly. I'm too stupid to figure out why I still even loosely follow though.

I see your points, but that rating is not going to matter much come negotiations. They want to get them done sooner rather than later, but if I'm NBC-U, I'm waiting for a while to find out where they're sitting at the end of 2018, and a brief pop for a special show in January isn't going to get me wet.

Lol I lost my shit during this dream match. Slater Gator explodes!

Slater-Gator was the best Titus has ever been.

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CBS needs a grammar lesson because that makes me think Austin won and stunnered Vince and Taker and whoever Two Sweet is

As a WWE fan, this show pissed me entirely the fuck off.

But I still have a Royal Rumble ticket, so I guess I'll see those assholes in Philly.

RAW was pretty shitty this week (outside of Austin/Vince) but I think the Royal Rumble will be good.

Honestly, the shitty Raw may be an added incentive to make the Rumble even BETTER. [/WISHFULTHINKING]

I found it quite odd that they went out of their way to announce that The Miz was in the Rumble, but not Roman despite the fact they were in the process of having a match against one another. Last year it made sense for Roman not to be announced since he was in the Universal Title match earlier in the show, but this year they're just totally downplaying him being involved at all which has me nervous that he's actually going to win.

:| Apparently the main reason why RAW 25 was a mess was due to Jimmy Fallon being late to the arena and WWE having a sizeable chunk of the show revolve around him.

I'm not sure if knowing that makes it better or worse. I've always hated Jimmy Fallon anyway.

I'm sure Fallon had a very full day prior to Raw

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Hmm and I thought it was smart of WWE to only show him in the crowd, didn't realize their plans were different.

If the 25th anniversary of RAW would have revolved around Jimmy Fallon that would have made the show even worse.