WWE News: Impact Wrestling Stars Take Aim At ‘Raw Underground’ On Social Media
On this week’s Monday Night Raw, Shane McMahon returned to WWE programming to announce a segment called “Raw Underground.” The recently launched project, however, appears to have gotten polarizing reactions from people within the industry, including a number of Impact Wrestling personalities who commented on the segment in a series of tweets on Tuesday.
As quoted by Wrestling Inc., the discussion started when announcer Josh Mathews replied to a tweet from Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo, who was then in the middle of an exchange with one of the company’s recent signees, former NXT superstar Kimber Lee.
“This one might need to be settled on #IMPACTUNDERGROUND Jk Jk,” he tweeted.
Not long after, another WWE alumnus, Karl Anderson, expressed his apparent distaste for an “Impact Underground,” writing that he’d want “anything but that” in the company. This was followed by a post from co-executive vice president Scott D’Amore, where he seemed amused by the previous remarks.
“I expect this from @THETOMMYDREAMERor but not a corporate VP or @IMPACTWRESTLING! Welcome to the don’t give a F gang! This tweet might just win the night! This tweet might just win the night!”
Mathews replied to D’Amore by clarifying that he was just kidding.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, “Raw Underground” was introduced as one of WWE chairman Vince McMahon’s latest attempts to boost declining ratings and had emerged after he was questioned about his company’s product. Rumors, however, have suggested that the initial edition of the weekly segment was hastily put together, given that it’s one of several new ideas that the promotion is supposedly testing in hopes that they become a hit with audiences.
A number of developmental and main roster superstars were featured in this week’s “Raw Underground” matches, including Dabba-Kato (formerly known by his real name, Babatunde Aiyegbusi), Erik of The Viking Raiders, and Dolph Ziggler. Per CBS Sports’ recap of this week’s Raw, all three members of The Hurt Business — MVP, Bobby Lashley, and Shelton Benjamin — also crashed the area where the fights were being held and announced that the project was under new management.
The aforementioned comments from Mathews and his Impact Wrestling colleagues are not the only ones that have been critical of “Raw Underground” since its debut. In the aforementioned recap, CBS Sports described the idea as an “awful” and poorly-executed idea that did not add anything of benefit to the red brand’s flagship program. Essentially Sports also shared several Twitter posts from fans who mostly poked fun at the concept and considered it a poor knockoff of either UFC or the 1999 film Fight Club.
