What’s wrong with Raw?

Last night’s Raw was the first decent-to-good show I can remember in about a month. Why has it been nearly unwatchable lately? I feel like it’s gotten away from what people really want to see, which is people beating the shit out of each other.

The Roman Reigns – Bobby Lashley feud had been terrible with the promos they were cutting on each other, or more specifically, Lashley’s promos. I’m willing to bet most people didn’t even notice how good Reigns’ promos have been because they’re too busy booing, but that’s another discussion. Last night people started booing the segment because they were ready for yet another war or words. However, they were pleasantly surprised and popped hard when the two just started raining blows down on each other in a 5-10 minute segment that saw the entire locker room try to keep them apart.

Same goes for Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax. Sure it’s the smart thing to keep the much smaller heel away from the much-larger face until the PPV to build the anticipation, but I think people were getting tired of just hearing the two hurl insults at each other and talk about Ronda Rousey. When Alexa attacked Nia with the kendo stick last night it breathed some fresh air into a stale feud. Even Nia missing Alexa and snapping the kendo stick over her knee showed some physicality and made the crowd happy.

Another culprit has been a lesser-but-still-annoying feud between Mojo Rawley and No Way Jose. They are not important enough to have Mojo refuse to wrestle Jose and just cut promos for 2-3 weeks. It waters down the feud, it makes people not care when the match finally happens, and it makes people sick of non-wrestling segments altogether. Even a good segment could fall flat at this point because people just want to see wrestling. It says a lot when Reigns is cutting the best promos of the night and Rollins sounds like he’s just out there to tell jokes.

Obviously the solution is simple: less talking, more wrestling. The most memorable Raw in recent times for me was when they started with an hour-plus gauntlet match. People loved it. Sure you need to build feuds with segments and promos, but strike the right balance or you’ll lose the audience.

Am I missing something? What’s your biggest issue with Raw (or SmackDown) in recent months? Let me hear it.