Off The Ropes: Why Aren’t You Watching WWE Monday Night Raw? by Hab Rich

I’m not sure how you feel about a columnist admitting he hasn’t partaken of the product for which he writes, but we’ll come back to that later. I haven’t watched much Monday Night Raw during the past few weeks but have kept up with the chatter through blogs and such. So for this week’s column, I thought of a few reasons why the WWE Universe might not be tuning in to TV’s longest-running, episodic yada yada yada. We love lists, right? So here is my list of reasons why folks might not tune into Monday Night Raw.

1. Busy: We’ve got jobs, some of us are parents with active children, some of us attend school; there’s no denying that in 2016, we lead very busy lives. And sometimes no matter how much we want to be in front of the television set at 8 pm, we simply can’t. If you’re like me, you often gauge how watchable you think Monday Night Raw might be, then consider whether or not what you’re doing or will be doing is worth missing Raw live. Thankfully, we live in the technology era with DVR and such, right?

2. Creative Direction: Guess I probably should have said that even though the list is numbered, it is very much at random. Had I taken a poll however, I’m sure that dissatisfaction with the Raw’s creative direction would top the percentages. I like many of the WWE Universe, have had our fair share of criticism for WWE’s creative direction on Monday nights. I don’t believe however, that it’s ever kept me from watching completely. I could open up several cans of oratorical whoopass on how completely stupid I feel it is to have Hunter Hearst Helmsley as my World Heavyweight Champion in the year 2016. I still could, but I’m not going to not watch because of it.

3. Injured Superstars: You could legit fill a bingo card with the list of injured superstars currently missing time on Monday nights. The superstar I miss the most is Cesaro. I knew Raw wouldn’t be the same without him, but just like Vince wants, I kept watching. You never know, there could be folks who’ve decided that until their favorite superstar comes back, they’re not watching.

4. No Cable/WiFi: Without one or the other, your chances of watching Raw are slim and none, right? But you still consider yourself a member of the WWE Universe, you just don’t have the capabilities to watch it live. Well don’t feel bad, because I don’t have cable either. I think this reason would also rate pretty high in a user survey.

5. Predictable: I’m sure many of us can relate to how predictable Raw is at times. Death, taxes and John Cena wins are about as a sure thing as you can bet on nowadays. Yeah, I know he’s injured smart guy about to roast me in my comment sections, but just follow me and don’t take the focus off what I’m saying here. I try to stay mostly news free on Mondays before Raw just to tune in and be able to judge the opening of the show and see how predictable the match finishes might be. I know I’m not the only one who’s decided against watching a certain match by saying, “I know who’s gonna win anyway.” However, I wouldn’t say predictability alone keep folks from watching Raw altogether.

6. Raw is too long: You won’t find any shortage of arguments saying that Raw is simply too long. I think that argument is more popular now, especially in conjunction with the seeming lack of creative direction. If WWE were consistently able to put together a start-to-finish entertaining show for us, then the too long arguments would dry up pretty quickly. Let me not forget to mention what seems to be an excessive amount of commercials make Raw even longer.

7. Something else on TV: Now that football season is winding to a close, Monday Night Raw’s biggest ratings competitor is going away until the fall. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other shows that come on during Raw that viewers don’t want to miss. That also doesn’t mean that the ‘last channel’ button on your remote isn’t getting a serious workout from all the switching back and forth. But if you think about it, it’s easier to find yourself changing away from a so-so Raw to watch whatever else has captured your fancy.

8. It’s online anyway: WWE doesn’t waste much time updating their media outlets after Raw. The WWE’s Twitter feed updates constantly with links to in-ring action and results throughout the show. There are more wrestling pages on the web than you can shake a stick at, with no shortage of results, news and spoilers. All in all, one might even ask, “Why should I have to watch it live when I’ll already know everything that happened just through my social media feed?” The essence of that question is why this reason made of the list of why folks don’t watch Monday Night Raw every week.

I’ve been watching wrestling for well over thirty years and even though I love it just as much as I did as a child, the adult Hab won’t be pouting to bed on Monday nights if I happen to miss an episode of Raw. I’m glad that technology has evolved to the point where if I don’t miss it, I can still find out what happened and stay abreast of the storylines and such.

At 37 years of age, I feel 100% qualified to offer, for your consideration, my very own “back in my day” story. Back in my day before the internet, if you missed an episode of wrestling, you couldn’t get the results online. If you were lucky enough to have a VCR, you were okay. If not, you hoped that one of your friends had watched it and could fill you in. Basically, there were fewer resources to catch up on wrestling. In my case, that seven days of waiting for next week without any results or news came with a good amount of anguish.

As I promised in the lead paragraph, I will doubleback to why I haven’t watched much Monday Night Raw lately and all I’ll say is life comes at you fast.