This past Monday's episode of Raw featured another Raw Underground segment, with several established Superstars beating down some developmental talents in "worked shoot" fights.
This new addition to the show has proven to be highly divisive for a number or reasons, but perhaps the biggest point of contention among old-school fans and purists has been the fact that, for all intents and purposes, WWE is promoting these worked shoot fights as being more realistic and harder hitting than the worked shoot fights that are already taking place in the ring!
This seems to be former WWE Superstar Ryback's major problem with Raw Underground, and he elaborated during the most recent episode of his podcast.
“The other issue with it is, you’re doing this Raw Underground which is a worked shoot situation on a show that’s a worked show. And so you’re reminding people that they’re watching fake, phony wrestling — and I think that’s a horrible thing to do. Because it’s like, when you’re watching a movie and you stop the movie and tell people you’re watching a movie.
Even if Raw Underground was a shoot, I think it’s the worst thing you could do on your programming for pro wrestling. Because it’s — especially kids and people, you’re telling them, they’re out there [going], ‘Why are those punches hurting and they’re stopping it, but then they’re throwing these punches out in the ring?’ You’re just simply reminding people, I don’t think it’s a good thing.”
It's hard to argue with The Big Guy's reasoning here. It might be easier to defend Raw Underground if the segments were actually entertaining and exciting, but so far, that simply hasn't been the case.
Do you guys agree with Ryback? What are your thoughts on Raw Underground?