By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

RADICAN’S RAW REAX JULY 9, 2012

WWE hit a low on Raw last night when it came to exposing Vince McMahon’s sense of humor at the expense of building the MITB PPV this weekend. Most of the show features a lot of sophomoric humor and sophomoric humor and angles don’t draw. Last night we got treated to a mega-dose of stupidity with Santino, Hornswoggle, and Brodus Clay during the course of Raw.

Was an attempt to build some interest in MITB this weekend present? Sure, Cena’s promo about winning his MITB match was the best part on the show, but then he proceeded to team with Kane in a plodding tag match that seemed to drag forever. The entire segment as a whole did nothing to make people want to buy the PPV this weekend.

The reveal of the anonymous Raw GM as Hornswoggle is one of those things that drive people away from wrestling. It makes very little sense when you look back at the things the Raw GM did and the reveal should have been huge, but instead it was wasted on a cheap laugh courtesy of Vince McMahon.

Outside of the ridiculous storyline involving A.J. Styles, Dixie Carter, Christopher Daniels, and Frankie Kazarian, Impact has been a much better overall show in recent weeks. They’ve done a good job of building from segment to segment on the shows. When I watch Impact, I anticipate what’s coming next. This rarely happens with Raw because the program is filled with silly content.

On Raw, the build for the two World title matches at MITB has been largely unsatisfying. If anything, Punk’s character has been hurt by associating with the A.J. character. Punk looks stupid and he was not only emasculated by Eve backstage, but he lets A.J. play mind games with him from week to week. That’s not something that should be happening to a top-tier character. It seems the days of the pipe bomb and the winds of change are long gong like a distant memory.

One thing about Raw in recent weeks that has stood out the most is when the Triple H-Lesnar feud takes center stage; it seems like something that matters. It seems like it matters because it’s serious. WWE needs to take a larger portion of Raw more seriously if it doesn’t want to lose more fans in the long-term. Silly angles, Santino, Hornswoggle, bad humor, announcers feuding, and top guys getting played by a crazy woman doesn’t draw attention to your product.

Serious angles and storylines sell wrestling PPVs, merchandise, and live event tickets. Millions of wrestling fans have tuned out during the last ten years and now more than ever, Raw feels like a variety show that has dropped nearly all of the traditional methods of drawing fans to spend their money on the product. There are good angles and interesting things going on from time-to-time, but the variety show method of presenting and promoting a wrestling product is going to hurt the company if this trend continues.

Raw had a lot of filler last night that did very little to draw interest in their upcoming PPV this weekend. Imagine what it’s going to be like when the show goes to three hours and this type of programming is presented at the expense of building new stars and driving interest in the product at the expense of silly angles and humor.

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