It’s now confirmed that this week’s WWE RAW angle with Mike and Maria Kanellis, and the stage explosion with Braun Strowman and Bobby Lashley, were ideas of new RAW Executive Director Paul Heyman, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
We’ve noted how Heyman has recently worked with certain talents on the creative aspects of their storylines, including Aleister Black, Ronda Rousey and Brock Lesnar. The Observer notes that Heyman has been a strong advocate of Black and Lacey Evans, among others. There’s no word yet on if Heyman will be able to keep working with Black as Black is still on the blue brand, now under SmackDown Executive Director Eric Bischoff. We’ve also reported how Heyman is a strong advocate of WWE United States Champion Ricochet. This likely means his push on the RAW brand will continue.
Regarding WWE NXT Tag Team Champions The Street Profits appearing on this week’s RAW, we noted before that this was not their official call-up as they are still considered to be on the NXT roster. The Observer indicated today that they will continue to appear on RAW most weeks, while still working NXT events. Heyman had a hand in bringing Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins to RAW this week, indicating they may be in for a push on the red brand. It was reported on Wednesday that there were “politics” involved in bringing The Profits to RAW this week.
On a related note, The Observer claimed this week that the addition of Bischoff and Heyman under their new roles was done for a variety of reasons. They reported that the key reasons were an expected negative reaction from Wall Street in the declining indicators of brand popularity, such as merchandise sales, arena attendance, and WWE Network numbers, based on the year before. The Observer points to how WWE is guaranteed to be profitable through late 2024 due to the recent RAW and SmackDown TV deals, but the stock price is based on the idea that the SmackDown – Fox move will lead to a “boom period” where those business indicators will increase to much stronger levels.
