More in-ring product doesn't automatically mean good TV.

For example, Baron Corbin is a featured act on RAW and he fucking sucks. More Baron Corbin matches means the show is objectively worse.

See also: Lashley.

I give 0 shits about more in-ring product if there’s no stories being told or the stories being told are shit. And I’m pretty sure I’m in the vast majority of potential viewers.

What’s this? You don’t find wrestlers wrestling to build momentum a compelling storyline? What about wrestlers trying to get on a roll? What about wrestlers trying to make a statement? No? Jesus, you’re tough. You should be more grateful that these wrestlers are working hard for your entertainment.

I’d accept just building momentum or wrestling simply because winning matches is important as a story. Even pre-2000s squash matches told a story. Doesn’t have to be too complex.

I have no idea why most matches in WWE nowadays happen. They drill the point home that the outcomes don’t mean anything. So fuck the in-ring product.

Ricochet losing to Bobby Roode but then getting put into Money in the Bank might seem inconsequential, but it’s a wonderful example of this company just not making sense and things happening for no reason.

Was catching up on Smackdown today and I realized that it is so much better than RAW because (among other things) Michael Cole is not there. I don't know if it's been mentioned here, but his grating voice yelling "IT'S BOSS TIME" and shit really hurts the show.

The commentary is all-round terrible though.

The only irritating thing about Smackdown's commentary is whenever Graves continues his shtick from RAW with the random bickering to Saxton. Once in a while its funny but most of the time it just comes off as him being really irritating.

Started to appreciate Saxton more on commentary when he was paired with Percy Watson for the Worlds Collide specials since it showed he can be pretty decent on commentary when given a more relaxed or friendly environment to do so.

Tom Phillips is a massive improvement over Michael Cole and he and Graves work well together.

Saxton is by far the best main show commentator they have simply because he knows when to shut the fuck up.

I watched a few segments on SmackDown the other week. Saxton was a lot less irritating than I remember. He was still not good, by any stretch, but commentary has gotten so bad that he seems like one of their best.

Maybe you like a wrestling show with no wrestling?

After this week's Raw, I am changing my answer to "yes".

Welcome to the party!!

It's started to affect SDLive too.

I had to turn my beloved brand blue off when I saw a graphic onscreen saying "Tonight is Shane McMahon Appreciation Night".

Unfortunately for the WWE, the Creative team isn't "creative" enough to come up with compelling characters that can captivate an audience or bring in new fans. Hence - instead of building two brands and increasing the overall depth of both shows, you now have two very sub-par rosters. The same thing happened 17 years ago when the WWE attempted the roster split. I have been a wrestling fan for quite some time and so it's entirely possible that I know what I'm talking about here.

I think we need to update the question. It’s clear Raw is the worst show on television now. But where does Raw rank as the worst show in television history?

Sound off in the replies below.

The constant camera cuts alone have made it the most unwatchable show ever before we even get into creative.

here is a good one which is a better show raw or impact

Impact by a country mile.

guess roh beats raw too

Impact is a fun watch

I've been to Impact tapings since D'Amore and crew took over and they are a lot of fun. They used to tape shows in my city pre-pandemic

Still 100% true.

Raw is even worse now than 2 years ago, but any wrestling show beats 99% of reality shows, singing or dancing competitions, or murder reenactment shows.

Other than other wrestling shows or live sports, television is pretty bad. It's why all the streaming companies win all the TV awards when they technically aren't even TV shows.

netflix green lights some real shit. raw is lightyears better than some of the shit youll find on there

Probably a tier or two above all-time worst tier since those type of terrible shows rarely last long or get canned very quickly.

RAW's been more bad than good throughout its history but most of its bad has been mediocre instead of outright terrible. Only reason its still in a comfortable spot on USA Network is solely due to USA Network's failure at creating enough big hit shows to ever be a real threat to RAW.

NXT's move to Tuesdays shows what would happen to RAW if USA Network ever got a strong enough replacement for it.

They certainly do, but they also have quite a lot of really good shows and movies that I would much rather watch, than an episode of raw.

well im certainly not sayin "fuck netflix its shit" im just saying the crown for "worst shit on TV" is only RAW if you're being reactionary.

for instance go watch "bonding" and tell me its better than even the worst single segment
of raw you can think of. there's some bottom of the barrel content out there that would make me beg for raw.

Yea it is nowhere near close to the worse show on TV. Not even in the bottom half.

If TNA is on TV (I don't know if it is) then WWE is not even the worst wrestling on TV.

I was red hot about AEW and I really loved it for the first 6 months or so. Then i started to sour on it. Now i watch it maybe two times a month. I think they are bad. But not nearly as bad as WWE Monday Night RAW. The things i see on RAW are absolutely terrible. The things i see on Smackdown are mostly terrible except Reigns and Bryan and anyone involved in that storyline ( though i'm coming around to the Crews, Nigerian storyline because they finally are doing something legit with him and I kinda like it ).

RAW has been so bad. And the saddest thing about it is that McIntyre should be a mega superstar. They had no idea what to do with him. They've squandered him beyond belief.

I do give kudos to WWE finally giving Lashley a run, but they are so late to the party on Lashley and because of it, they might be late to the party on McIntyre and they have really fucked themselves. Not to mention the entire RAW show is so unwatchable. I'm not sure who is writing that shit but there is 0 continuation, 0 heart, 0 urgency, 0 everything. WWE could actually just book house shows as a RAW show and get away with it at this point. It would be no different than what they are doing now.

WWE/WWF used to have patience. They used to tell a story. Now it seems like they hope the fans make a superstar for them. And even if the fans make a superstar for them, they manage to fuck that up too!

Money has become so involved with the WWE product, that I'm not sure they can ever recover and put a decent product out for the regular fan.

If i were running WWE and money were not involved, I would put Roman Reigns on RAW right now. But money and contracts are involved. So that will never happen. And so the WWE product has become a mainstream rich mans product.

WWE has literally evolved past the regular internet forum fan. And it's not coming back.