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The opening segment of Raw featuring Randy Orton, Bray Wyatt and Alexa Bliss was 100% Vince McMahon's vision. We are told that several argued against the segment, feeling it was a weak opening segment and needed to overhauled, but you can't overrule City Hall.
The current creative for WWE right now falls directly in the hands of Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard. In fact, there are some who have described Prichard to PWInsider.com as the most powerful person in WWE right now other than a McMahon family member. Creatively, everything flows through Prichard at the moment and his word has been described as "very much the Gospel" for Vince McMahon, which as you might imagine, being in that position translates into a lot of frustration and heat towards Prichard among talents privately.
Triple H was at last night's Raw while Prichard was not, which was described to us by several as breath of fresh air.
One edict that has been strictly enforced of late is the time cues for the broadcasts. There were actually a number of talents who were reprimanded for going over time in recent weeks at the Survivor Series PPV and subsequent TV shows. There is also heat falling on some producers if their segments end up going over.
The new Drew McIntyre entrance with the sword was something Vince McMahon was completely on-hands with recently, spending what was described to PWInsider as "a lot of time" blocking out exactly how he wanted McIntyre to handle the sword and use it to set up his pyro.
Talents from Raw Underground who were drafted to Raw, Dabba-Kato and Artuo Ruas, have been at Raw tapings in recent weeks but not used. We are told the feeling is they still need additional seasoning before they are introduced as full-fledged Raw performers.
We are told that the Jeff Hardy spot on Raw last night with the Swanton did not go as initially conceived, which is why he ended up in that scary moment where he hit his head on the stairs. The spot, as it was envisioned, would have seen Hardy clear everything and land on the center of the table safely. It was one of those things where a few inches made all the difference.
Shane Helms was back producing last night.
Sonjay Dutt is now working full-time on the WWE NXT brand.
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