I'm starting to feel the burn of reviewing RAW every week.

Now, when I get home from work on Tuesday I don't immediately start writing. I fire up the XBox Series S and play Starfield. And that's all I want to do - play Starfield and watch Severance with my wife.

As I was writing this week's review I realized something fairly substantial (and worrying). I don't actually enjoy watching RAW. I find so much of it grating - the advertisements, the backstage segments, the scripted promos. There's usually one good thing each week, but that's not enough to justify giving two and a half hours of my life to something. As far as improvements to the show, I think they've gone as far as they're willing to go (better editing, interesting camera angles, a more structured start to each episode). Backstage segments clearly aren't going anywhere. No amount of criticizing them, no matter how right I am, is going to change that. The ensemble cast of characters fluctuates wildly in terms of quality. On one hand we have CM Punk and Roman Reigns and on the other we have Dominik Mysterio and The Creed Brothers. The interviews, no matter where they happen in the arena, are terribly performed and terribly written. I wince through them, wondering what in the blue hell I'm even watching.

JOURNAL ENTRIESTim KailMarch 21, 2025journal, tim kail work of wrestling, tim kail's wrestling journal, wwe, monday night raw, austin theory, grayson waller, gunther, jey uso, wrestlemania

The McMahon Behind The Curtain

The opening segment of this week's Monday Night Raw is a light shining at us from the future, illuminating what the WWE could (and hopefully will) become one day.

In it, Roman Reigns, yet again irate at the absence of his WrestleMania opponent, Brock Lesnar, took to the microphone to air his grievances.

Brock, in Roman's words, "Didn't show up to work".

This has been the essence of his problem with Lesnar, and the basis of their WrestleMania rematch. Roman, regardless of the crowd's perpetually mixed-to-negative reaction to him, always shows up to work. He "busts his ass" for the business that's "in his blood", and, just like the fans, he's sick and tired of Brock Lesnar only showing up to work "when the money is right or the city is right". He believes The Universal Champion should be a full-time member of the WWE roster; an unconditional leader of the locker-room and the company.

The Writings