Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: legends night, Raw, wrestling, wwe

WWE Plans Gathering of Old People During Pandemic at Raw Legends Night

WWE has thought long and hard about how to solve their ratings crisis, exhausted every possible avenue, and come to one singular conclusion: it's time to bring back Hulk Hogan. Announced during tonight's Raw, Hogan, who WWE is hoping nobody remembers was captured on video delivering a virulently racist promo while banging the wife of his friend, Florida radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, will headline a special "Legends Night" episode of WWE Raw alongside Ric Flair, Kurt Angle, Torrie Wilson, and Beth Phoenix. The show will also feature minor legends including Carlito, Jimmy Hart, Jaquelyn, Alicia Fox, Jeff Jarrett, and more. Basically, if you used to wrestle and you're not signed to AEW, you're welcome at Legends Night…

…Which doesn't sound like a very well thought-out idea. The event has the potential to wipe out nearly an entire generation of legends if WWE's COVID prevention protocols, which have not had a stellar track record, fail again. Just saying.

Bringing back stars of the past has been a tried and true method of spiking ratings for WWE before. And Raw has never been more desperate for ratings, so it's not surprising Vince McMahon would return to the well with a Legends Night episode of Raw. And to top it all off, rival AEW recently brought Sting back and popped a big rating with it. So that's even more incentive for Vince, who hates to be outdone.

And if it wasn't the tail end of a global pandemic especially dangerous for older people, we'd love to see all these old stars get together on Raw for Legends Night. Under the circumstances though, wouldn't it be safer to wait until later in 2021 for a Legends Night when more people are vaccinated? But of course, WWE needs those ratings now.

Another problem though is that unless the legends are planning to stick around week after week, that ratings boost will be temporary. Even AEW's big Sting bump lasted two weeks before the ratings returned to their normal levels, and that was with a huge world title change and a crossover with Impact Wrestling. Then again, maybe WWE is just trying to hold out until the Royal Rumble. Who knows? All we can say for sure is that the diminishing returns of bringing back legends every time you need a ratings spike will diminish at a much faster rate if you give all the legends coronavirus, so hopefully everyone practices safe social distancing and mask-wearing at Raw Legends Night.

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