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For a while I haven’t watched a full episode of RAW, I’ve only been looking at the highlights so I have become a bit disconnected to the world of WWE. Even though I don’t religiously watch the WWE as much as I used to, there are moments that occur which keep me interested. As you might have guessed, I’m thinking about the return of The Rock this past Monday night.
The Rock’s return and the reaction he received from the crowd was a brilliant moment to watch because it’s rare we get surprising moments like this anymore. The internet has been both good and bad for the world of professional wrestling, it’s provided a forum for fans and wrestlers to connect along with allowing wrestling companies to have an unrestricted marketing tool.
On the other side, it provides spoilers and rumours for fans. Many of us (me included), read spoilers because we want to know whats going to happen or what has already happened but it reduces the amount of surprises we are going to witness. During the Attitude Era I didn’t have access to the internet so I didn’t know what was going to happen and it was always exciting.
The WWE made the right call by not promoting The Rock’s return even though they could have done it a few hours before the show to hopefully drum up the ratings. I always feel that if a superstar is to return then it should never be advertised, especially when it’s a live show like RAW.
The less the fans know about what is happening, the better it will be for the product. The fans in the arena on Monday night erupted when The Rock’s music hit and that’s something we don’t see every week. People say that the product is weak, storylines are boring and the superstars aren’t as exciting as they were during the Attitude Era but during the Monday Night Wars, we weren’t as exposed to the business as we are now.
Fans used to tune into RAW and Nitro because they never knew what they were going to see, it was always unpredictable, exciting and many of us thought if we missed a show we could potentially miss something big. This doesn’t seem to happen now. The Rock returning live on RAW was surprising to the majority of fans and it helped the fans live reaction. If RAW was like this most week’s then surely more fans would be less willing to miss tuning in.
I hope that when Daniel Bryan is ready to return, the WWE don’t announce it. I would love to see him return in a ‘wrestling city’ where the fans are loud, rowdy and proud to be fans of professional wrestling. He is one of the most popular stars in the company and he needs a big surprise return to re-engage him with the fans after his time out due to injury.
RAW is the WWE’s number 1 show, it’s the one show that keeps the WWE talked about week after week all year long so it has to be exciting. Surprise returns like The Rock’s creates a buzz and it’s needed every once in a while, even if it’s to get people talking so the WWE can build on it.
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