Last night's Raw ended with Stephanie McMahon announcing the inaugural Women’s Royal Rumble match at the forthcoming annual pay-per-view.

This is a welcome announcement that instantaneously makes next year’s Rumble more interesting and essential-viewing. Over the next six weeks, fans will watch this match take shape, and discuss who it should bolster, how it will be structured, and what surprises may be in store. This is all good, and it’s reassuring to see the WWE do the obviously right thing.

Fans should definitely be happy, but fans should also be asking, “What happens after?”

Tim Kail's Raw Review

There are times when the WWE strikes that perfect balance between heavy-handed schmaltz and sincere, logical storytelling.

That elusive sweet spot may just be the purest representation of the WWE's perspective on professional wrestling; an over-the-top family saga wrapped in spandex, fireworks, and an assortment of colorful heroes & villains that occasionally results in genuine expressions of pain, joy, surprise, and psychosis.

One such moment occurred on the November 13th, 2017 episode of Monday Night Raw when Kurt Angle and his tearful "son", Jason Jordan, were interrupted by a grim & determined Triple H.

Am I A Pro-Wrestling Fan Or A Human Being

I stood with my hands in my pockets and my eyes on the floor, waiting for the next stall or urinal to open up. We were a pack of shifty men, unaccustomed to bathroom lines. A father and a son talked about Spiderman: Homecoming (the movie we'd all just finished watching) behind me. The father liked it. The son wasn't so sure. Both loved Michael Keaton. Most of us were quiet save a few customary post-pee man-grunts.

A stall door opened, and a bearded young man exited. He wore a Bullet Club tee-shirt. I recognized the skull and crossed AKs immediately. Even though I knew nothing about the Bullet Club (other than the fact that they exist and are important in indy wrestling) I experienced the warmth of recognition.

A fellow wrestling fan!

The Art Of Sasha Banks

A true star in entertainment is very rare.

Much like the celestial bodies they're named for, a star's talent, charisma, ingenuity, or personality burns so brightly and distinctly that they're impossible to ignore. They shine through the impenetrable dark of sameness that defines the vast majority of our existence. Their reach is seemingly infinite, easily comprehend and appreciated upon first glance.

THE RAW REVIEW

I only have so many sentences left.

Even if I live a long life, every time I finish writing a sentence, I’m getting closer and closer to the last one I’ll ever write.

Put like that, I can’t help but question why I would ever devote an extensive amount of time writing about a television show I regard as inescapably terrible. Whether or not it’s terrible for anyone else isn’t important to me when considering if I should go on writing a weekly RAW REVIEW. For me, the one who writes this, Monday Night Raw is a terrible television show that exhibits no real sign of genuine improvement and hasn’t in the four years I’ve been writing about it. Genuine improvement would mean a creative overhaul. A creative overhaul means an entirely different creative team with entirely different ideas from the ones currently making it on our television screens. Creative overhaul means never seeing another “invasion” angle or another “collusion” angle or anything anyone could easily identify as an “angle”. Creative overhaul means reconditioning the audience to be an actual audience rather than a cult of greedy, ignorant, self-important blog-babies who think summary-writing qualifies as writing and repeatedly using the word “nuance” is an indicator of intelligence and that the art pro-wrestling is a “choose your own adventure” young adult novel.

THE RAW REVIEW

Imagine we’re by a campfire; you, me, and a few other campers. We’ve been hiking all day, and now we’re sitting down together to eat and drink and talk. The moonlight splinters against the forest canopy, falling to the dirt like strands of silk. Twigs and leaves snap and rustle in the dark beyond our campsite, reminding us that we’re not really alone. The campfire-light holds us in a warm, orange bubble, as we pull apart bits of jerky and laugh as gram crackers and marshmallows and chocolate dissolve in our mouths. A bottle of Jack passes from mouth to mouth, and that’s when the stories start.

THE RAW REVIEW

“Was RAW good?” my wife asked when she noticed RAW fade to black on my laptop. I could hear the hope in her voice, the earnest desire of any good spouse to know their partner is happy.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. She laughed in reply, accustomed to the sometimes indescribable angst any episode of Monday Night Raw inspires in me.

THE RAW REVIEW

For the first time in two years, I had fun watching Monday Night Raw. And although it was the “Raw after Mania”, which is often a good episode, the fun I had wasn’t related to what the audience was doing (quite the opposite, in fact). The audience is usually the main attraction of the post-Mania RAW, but this week the crowd only managed to get in the way of the show. RAW was better than the crowd this week and that’s the way it should always be because the crowd is the crowd…they’re not performers risking their lives to tell stories. For too long the WWE has permitted the crowd to be “more important” or “better than” the show itself, and that stems from a modern booking philosophy designed to make money from the internet fans rather than tell good stories for a general, television audience.

THE RAW REVIEW

This week's episode of Monday Night Raw, as well as this build into WrestleMania 32, embodies the WWE's failure to craft coherent, entertaining television in 2016. Everything that I've critiqued about the product for the past several years has escalated in recent weeks, making it harder and harder to sustain an interest or passion for the product.

THE RAW REVIEW

First impressions are important.

That first encounter can even come to define your relationship with that person. Over time, your initial assessment of their character might prove to be incorrect, but it’s impossible to be wrong about how you feel. “I like this person” or “I don’t like this person” isn’t connected to anything objective about the person who inspires those feelings. You might hate someone who is a “good person” and you might love someone who is a “bad person”.

The same holds true for artists and their works of art.

THE RAW REVIEW

To tell a good story, it helps to have a basic respect for human beings.

It also helps if the storyteller appeals to the most intelligent members of their audience rather than assuming everyone is a wide-eyed, open-mouthed, passive buffoon who wants to see anything happen.

When human beings are told, convincingly, that “B comes after A” they settle into a place of comfort. They start to like the idea that B comes after A. They start to rely on the idea that B comes after A. Not before long, the idea that B comes after A transforms into an irrefutable fact in their minds.

THE RAW REVIEW

I was twenty-five when I first started writing THE RAW REVIEW in 2012. I was a typical angsty young writer - single, pissed off at the world, envious of “better” generations, and certain that my work was the best in the world. I would tap away furiously at the keyboard, churning out long, irony-laced, condescending, thoughtful critiques of RAW. These early write-ups reflected my state of mind and my state of life.

The Writings