re: WWE Monday Night Raw: Punk Returns Home

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This is no small thing in the current day and time

And it's for the same reasons they've always done stuff like that. It drives interest. Interest eventually leads to money one way or the other

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I don't disagree. However, WWE is in a unique spot. Their events are selling out without matches being announced. They tour much less than they used to and have found a way to increase profitability to levels never reached before. They have the Netflix and Saudi money guaranteed for the immediate future.

Stone Cold coming back does get eye balls for the clip and probably leads to a huge rating the next night...but they're going to get a huge rating the next night no matter what (and it's not like Stone Cold hasn't returned many times before, including having an impromptu main event match as recently as two years ago).

I think that having a member of the AEW roster show up and participate in the main event has a similar effect primarily because that's the one line that has never been crossed. At a time when the industry as a whole is doing well, even the hint of working agreement between AEW will increase that buzz.

And please don't get me wrong, when the glass shatters on night two, I'm going to lose my mind and the crowd cheering will be amazing. I just think that if the whole point of the narrative is "Cody Rhodes finishes his story", Dustin's participation is the perfect end note. From the Rhodes Brothers (with Dusty) beating the Shield, to Cody/Dustin at the beginning of AEW, to the entire family aspect of the Bloodline. That's the way the story should end.