Major Creative Changes During RAW Reunion, John Cena Note

– Last night’s RAW Reunion show was a hit all around with fans, offering a nice flow of legends, and helped progress some storylines as well. Still, according to F4WOnline.com, the show still had quite a few hiccups, where segments needed to be re-written. Having said that, the reason for most of these “re-writes” were due to talents being flagged by WWE’s medical team, stopping them from doing anything physical. While re-writes in the past generally center around Vince McMahon changing his mind around the direction of the show, this was not the case last night.

According to Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Radio, there were plans on having Rikishi do his Stinkface finisher on the Revival and D-Von during their segment, but that was cancelled due to the fact that he wasn’t cleared to do this move. Meltzer also reported that while Pat Patterson won the 24/7 Championship last night, he lost the title moments later off camera, because he too wasn’t cleared by medical for anything overly physical. Fans may note that he won the championship to begin with by pinning then-champ Drake Maverick with his foot.

– One pleasant surprise last night was 16-time WWE Champion John Cena showing up to kickoff the Raw Reunion; however, he didn’t end up staying that long. According to PW Insider, while superstars generally stay until the end of the show, an exception may have been made for Cena. As he wasn’t there with the rest of the RAW legends to close the show with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, he may very well have done his opening segment, and then left.

Which is completely understandable. John Cena currently has a very busy schedule, with multiple television and film projects on his plate, so having him there during the RAW opener was a fantastic surprise, and stellar segment to kickoff the entertaining episode. Better to have John Cena on a WWE show for a short while, then not have him there at all.