WWE Rumors: Vince McMahon Allegedly Made This Week’s ‘Raw’ Episode ‘Worse Than Usual’ With Last-Minute Changes
The latest backstage rumors suggest that WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon did something he has supposedly done before many a weekly show — change the script right before the start of taping. It also appears that McMahon’s latest series of last-minute changes didn’t go down too well, resulting in what was perceived as a subpar episode of Monday Night Raw.
On the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Live (via WrestlingNews.co), Bryan Alvarez talked about this week’s Raw, pointing out how McMahon, despite his ostensible focus on the rebooted XFL, has remained as hands-on as ever when it comes to his wrestling promotion. With his football league closing in on its first month of action since its relaunch, the WWE boss was reportedly backstage for Raw on Monday, where he reportedly rewrote most of the show on the day itself.
As explained by Alvarez, there were a number of high points on this week’s Monday Night Raw, including Drew McIntyre’s attack on WWE Champion Brock Lesnar, The Street Profits’ Raw Tag Team Championship win over Seth Rollins and Murphy, and the show-closing segment featuring Randy Orton and Beth Phoenix. However, he opined that the episode’s middle two hours “sucked,” seemingly blaming McMahon’s alleged last-minute rewrites for the overall drop-off in quality.
“I don’t know everything that happened on Monday but I do know that this guy showed up and he changed everything again. Apparently, it was worse than usual and if you watched the show, the show was worse than usual.”
.@RandyOrton has done the unthinkable.#TheViper just gave @TheBethPhoenix an RKO on #RAW. pic.twitter.com/95IznGW5Ox
— WWE (@WWE) March 3, 2020
According to WrestlingNews.co, social media users were largely unhappy with most of what took place on this week’s Raw, particularly Ricochet’s surprising loss to Riddick Moss in a match for the 24/7 Championship. The publication explained that many fans saw this as the latest example of McMahon burying a wrestler who has been pegged by Raw executive director Paul Heyman as one of the red brand’s up-and-coming standouts.
“Heyman has been able to get some ideas in but it is clear that real change will never happen in WWE unless McMahon decides to step back and let others have complete control over the creative side of things,” the outlet added.
Reports of McMahon changing things at the 11th hour when he isn’t happy with a Raw or SmackDown script are nothing new. In August 2019, Alvarez’s Wrestling Observer Radio colleague Dave Meltzer reported that the 74-year-old billionaire similarly decided to “[rip] up the script” shortly before a scheduled SmackDown Live episode. This came one month after McMahon allegedly made last-minute changes to another one of the blue brand’s weekly shows, also mere hours before the episode was scheduled to go on air.
