I think I had to check if I was under the influence of certain substances when I watched RAW this week, as Shane McMahon (the prodigal son) returned after a year-long absence from WWE programming to bring us all “RAW Underground” as the big secret that was hyped up leading to the show.
The scene is reminiscent of the movie “Fight Club” as competitors enter a modified wrestling ring minus the ring ropes and engage in “shoot fighting”, UFC style, as scantily clad (nee strippers?) dance in the background. The first segment of RAW Underground featured Babatunde (now known as Baba-Keto), Erik of the Viking Raiders and Dolph Ziggler beating various opponents.
It’s just hard to imagine the McMahon ‘heir apparent’, first born son of Vince McMahon getting into this kind of gritty environment, but Shane does have a history of really sacrificing his own well being for the product, so I can give him some slack for this part.
This concept is something familiar yet out of the box as well. Some twenty years ago WWE tried this “Brawl for All” tournament with the intention of seeing who on the roster could legitimately win in an actual fight, and the winner was expected to receive a big push down the road. Well the result was careers were cut short due to legitimate injuries and the eventual winner, Bart Gunn, was buried so deep he left the wrestling business.
RAW Underground is not real fighting, it’s a work like all other segments on the show, and it’s hard to judge in this early stage whether this would be something that would boost the show’s fledging ratings. One thing that may pique interest for people if RAW Underground serves as a platform to dilute the lines between the wrestler’s character and their real life persona.
The idea comes from during RAW Talk when Dolph Ziggler was trying to convince R-Truth to try it out, calling him “Ron”, as Ron Killings is R Truth’s real name. We all know R-Truth as the loveable comedic character who is a multi time 24/7 champion, but RAW Underground could give the man a platform to show us the real him. His name is “Killings” after all which seems to suit the venue.
I would also like to see the real guys Nick Nemeth (Ziggler) and Raymond Rowe (Erik) as well as many others on their ‘character’ would develop by just competing on RAW Underground as themselves.
Perhaps this is one way that WWE can ensure the survival of this rather intriguing segment.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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