Although WWE advertised two big matches for this past Monday’s episode of Raw in advance, there are usually various changes made to the format of the show every week and it happened again.
Fightful first reported that Monday’s Raw was supposed to feature the steel cage match between WWE Champion Big E and Kevin Owens in the main event. Instead, WWE had that match open the show and saved Liv Morgan challenging Raw Women’s Champion Becky Lynch for the main event.
Pwinsider.com reported today that WWE originally planned for Morgan vs. Lynch to take place in the second hour. There was a push during the day to go with the women’s match as the main event when it was pointed out how it fell on the anniversary of the Lita vs. Trish Stratus match that headlined Raw in December 2004.
Although the third hour usually drops in viewership compared to the first two hours, which also happened this week, several people in the company pointed out the strong digital success the Raw Women’s Title match did.
Also, the steel cage match replaced an initially planned talking segment in the opener where Big E and Owens would further hype the bout later in the show.
