It's been a long time since WWE fans could label anything the company did as subtle, but the way Dexter Lumis debuted on Monday Night Raw was inter-show storytelling at its best. Audiences don't see this trick often used in WWE or AEW. Wednesday Night Dynamite typically feels like a mad dash to cram as many wrestlers as possible into the two-hour program, while Raw is generally a slog through knee-deep mud in a hurricane. If this is a ploy that Triple H intends on using moving forward—and given how effective it was on Raw, there's no reason to believe that he won't—then it could give WWE a pretty big leg up on the competition.
Under Triple H's watch, Raw's third hour was weaponized incredibly well. Instead of sticking the main event at the show's end, as usual, Ciampa's match against Bobby Lashley for the United States Championship was booked to happen as the second hour turned into the third. This match placement presumably helps keep the audience engaged, as it's the bout most fans would have wanted to tune in to see. Also, viewers who were paying close attention to things happening in the background during the first two hours would have wanted to stick around for a third because there was a mystery afoot.
If folks wanted to know what was up with the car accident that was visible during Kevin Owens' parking lot interview, they needed to stay tuned. If the audience was curious why a gaggle of cops went sprinting by Alexa Bliss, Bayley, and others before AJ Styles fought The Miz in the last match of the evening, they had to keep watching. Not only did what was happening in the background reward viewers for paying attention, but these events made the segments of Raw flow beautifully. It all added up to the reveal of Dexter Lumis. The revelation, too, happened in the background, as the officers from earlier subdued Lumis. Now, if fans want to know what he had to do with that car accident, why the police were dragging him out of the building, and why he was staring down AJ Styles, they'll have to tune in next week to find out.
Making Raw Can't-Miss TV For Three Hours Is A Massive Win
The deft touch The Game and his writing staff showed with this introduction should be cause for concern to Tony Khan and AEW. Lumis, in and of himself, isn't a threat to AEW. He was involved in some interesting programs in NXT, and gives Triple H an outstanding character on the chess board that is Monday Night Raw. He's not Karrion Kross, though.
The problem is nothing that has happened in All Elite Wrestling over the last several months was pieced together this naturally. Two of the biggest knocks on WWE over the last decade have been that Vince McMahon only books to please himself, and Raw is three hours long. Hunter has replaced McMahon as head of creative, and Monday nights have felt like anything but a drag over the last two weeks. It's early in Triple H's tenure as WWE's booker, but he's already proven to have an attention to detail that AEW might struggle to match, especially in its mid-card.