Tim Kail's Raw Review, 1/13/25

A meditative CM Punk before his match with Seth Rollins

I could easily write a RAW review where I describe this episode as superior to last week’s efforts while still lacking genuine ingenuity.

I could go on at length about each match (all good, five in total), lament the arrival of “I’m in the Royal Rumble” promo-season, loath the use of “Promo trains” to push narratives forward, commend the WWE for its earnest representation of debuting Superstar, Penta, laud Lyra Valkyria v Dakota Kai (the best match of the night), explain why I think Rhea Ripley adheres too closely to a script and how doing so limits her, extol Sami Zayn’s use of The Blue Thunder Bomb as a finisher, and praise Damian Priest for hoisting himself out of midcard obscurity and securing a spot in the main event.

I could do all of that and we’d be left with a fine RAW Review of a fine RAW.

Damian Priest hits Finn Balor with a clothesline

But that would betray the true purpose of this recurring article; affect real change in professional wrestling by offering the medium the arts criticism it deserves.

And what does that mean to me? It means focusing on those areas of pro-wrestling that do not receive nearly enough attention. It means challenging norms in the interest of creating a wrestling that feels modern.

It means we must, once again, discuss backstage segments.

Bear with me, especially those who’ve heard and read me go on about this for a decade.

There is a sickness in WWE and that sickness affects all of professional wrestling. What is that sickness? While it’s most easily described as complacency, “feeling so satisfied with your own abilities or situation that you feel you do not need to try any harder”, it might be more accurately described as a form of brainwashing.

Professional wrestling is so accustomed to presenting its backstage worlds in what I’ll simply describe as two dimensional interviews and group conversations, where it’s unclear whether or not the characters know they’re being filmed (and if they don’t know, why don’t they know, and if they do know, why do they act as if they don’t?), that its created a form of wrestling and an audience that can’t even conceive of anything else. I refuse to believe the best image any promotion can come up with is this static medium shot:

One such scene unfolded early on in the show where Dominic Mysterio gave flowers to Liv Morgan to atone for attempting to crawl back to Ripley the previous week. Like most backstage segments the scene gradually became visual and narrative sludge, bodies blending together in the background and foreground, motivations and meanings smudged in favor of a parting “joke” (the flowers for Liv ended up back in Dom’s possession, har har). I recently wrote on Blue Sky how much I despise the visual language of backstage segments, and someone responded, sincerely, “What other way could they do it?”

Why harp on this, you might ask?

Why die on this hill?

Surely there are more important hills (healthcare for wrestlers, more equitable representation of historically marginalized groups).

I contend that backstage segments are so shoddily conceived and executed, such terrible cinema, that they actually do harm to the mind that absorbs them. They disregard narrative logic. They laugh in the face of chronology. They always elicit awful performances.

They’re filmed with the sensibility of someone who’s picked up a camera for the first time and also happens to be bad at filmmaking. This badness, which is so obvious when you judge backstage segments against anything else on television, seeps into our minds and years and years of programming lead us to believe this is not only the only way to do it, but the best way to do it.

I want to deprogram professional wrestling fans and especially promotions like WWE and AEW. I understand that I do not know how difficult it is to create a two-to-three hour weekly wrestling show. I understand that traditional backstage segments are a quick and dirty way to convey character, setup matches, and push a show forward. When you’re scrambling every week to produce a show the backstage segment is an invaluable device. Even so, I contend that my suggested backstage world is easier to script and film because it’s mostly improvised and filming what’s actually happening behind the scenes.

I’ll even concede the need for scripted promos if I have to, it’s that waste-high ever-expanding and contracting shot that simply must go.

The Judgement Day backstage

I have to give WWE some credit, though.

Little by little, they are learning to play with their cameras. This very episode opened with a superb shot of a SUV arriving in the garage and then CM Punk stepping out from the diver’s seat. The camera followed him all the way through the curtains to the stage where he greeted his chanting fans. It was beautiful, and it’s a shot only achievable in professional wrestling. Sports certainly have similar shots and behind-the-curtain-peaks but nothing on the scale and with the same emotional capacity as professional wrestling. The combination of sight and sound is unmatched. The same can be said for the drone cam that quickly roams about the arena, zooming down through the smoky rafters post-pyro to reveal the legendary combatants below.

Seth Rollins (left) v CM Punk (right) on the Netflix premiere of Monday Night Raw

So WWE has demonstrated not only an ability to evolve, but, more importantly, an interest in evolving.

This is why I ask, specifically Triple H, why are you still doing traditional backstage segments? There are so many more fascinating ways to convey character and examine a world, ways you already employ in documentaries, photo series, and vignettes.

As I sat down to write this review, I had every intention of doing that fine job for that fine show. I greased my writing wheels by first going to WWE.com to download photos from all the segments and matches of the night to post in the article. And that’s when I noticed a gallery that piqued my interest: Behind the scenes of the Raw on Netflix Premiere.

I’m going to share some of these images with you, so that you might see for yourself what beauty exists behind that curtain, and how we’re being deprived a visually fascinating professional wrestling.

This shot, in particular, of Roman Reigns seated in a chair drinking from a red cup speaks volumes without saying a word:

The Tribal Chief backstage

He is simultaneously humanized and exalted. His stare is incredibly intense, but his posture is relaxed. He is surrounded by people and yet he looks completely alone. Who is this figure of contradictions, this man who appears to have the weight of the world on his shoulders?

Is pro-wrestling just not worthy of being seen through this higher quality, crystal clear lens?

I contend that pro-wrestling is infinitely worthy of this style of presentation. Might it take time to get used to, might it ruffle feathers, might it mean more planning? Of course, but seeing a backstage world that reflects the complexity, beauty, tranquility, and anxiety of a locker room of characters would elevate RAW to previous unrealized highs. And now is the time. This is the beginning of The Netflix Era, after all. There won’t be a new era where change is expected for quite some time. Pro-wrestling has never been more accessible nor its audience more enlightened to its inner-machinations. Insisting on the continued presence of backstage segments is tantamount to insisting audiences need to believe pro-wrestling is real to enjoy it.

A Devil’s advocate might argue fans wouldn’t even notice, that fans just don’t care about the look and feel of backstage segments. How convenient to pick and choose what the fans do and do not care about when confronting the status quo. Isn’t the mere presence of a more visually sophisticated wrestling and, therefore, a more sophisticated fanbase, worth the effort?

The Rock and The Undertaker backstage

What do you have to lose, WWE?

And what of the gains? A deeper emotional bond between wrestler and fan, which translates into a larger financial investment from said fans. So if not for the art of it all, do it for the tee shirt sales.

IN CONCLUSION

I don’t want to see another backstage segment for the rest of my time on this planet.

They are atrocious cinema, conceptually dubious, laughably bad at their best, bottom-feeding sketch anti-comedy at their worst. They don’t belong on television.

I know they won’t vanish because of this RAW Review overnight, but I’m willing to chip away at this stone for another ten years if I must. I believe we’re all settling for fast food when we could be treated to fine dining. And weekly too, not just intermittently as we’ve grown accustomed. I will not change the lens through which I see these terrible segments, especially when I know WWE already possesses a better lens through which to examine its world. I encourage you to nudge them, and all of professional wrestling, to think better of itself, and produce a wrestling we’re proud to share with our friends and family.

If you enjoyed this review please share it with all your pro-wrestling friends on the social media gimmicks. And subscribe to my podcast The Work Of Wrestling. New episodes every Monday.