Last night’s episode of WWE Raw, the latest to be held under Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s creative leadership, was held at the Simmons Bank Arena in Little Rock, Arkansas. Like most of the country, Little Rock was being pummeled with exceptionally cold weather, and some talents and production team members were met with travel delays. Levesque made note of the changes in a social media post and praised the WWE team for pushing forward.
“I can’t say enough about the amazing job our talent, crew and staff did these last few days,” he wrote. “Through winter storms, blizzards and incredibly tough travel, they did what needed to be done to put on a show for the @WWEUniverse… which included completely redesigning #WWERaw on less than 24 hours’ notice. They really are the best in the business. To put it simply, I couldn’t be more proud or grateful.”
Levesque has good reason to heap praise on the WWE crew for pulling off last night’s Raw, but it sounds like there are other reasons for him to be beaming about his team, as well. Fightful reports that with Kevin Dunn no longer in charge of WWE production, new production elements are quickly being implemented. Furthermore, many things that Dunn was against in the past have become the norm.
Among the changes to WWE TV are the inclusion of vignettes more in the style of what is done in NXT. Such as Piper Niven and Chelsea Green confronting Kayden Carter and Katana Chance in a nightclub or the Tyler Bate and Butch segment from this past Friday’s SmackDown. While in charge of NXT, Levesque apparently allowed Jeremy Borash to assemble a team to put together those vignettes in NXT. That team was allowed to operate under Dunn’s radar. With Dunn out of the picture, the door has been opened for those NXT-styled promos to be featured on the main roster.
The new method appears to be getting praise from the roster and creative team, as many feel like they have more freedom and are being allowed to develop their characters. One source said that if Dunn were involved in this new process, the vignettes would have more cutaways.