Keith Lee on Raw

Keith Lee will be debuting on the Raw brand tonight.   Pwinsider.com reports that Lee has been officially called up and they were told the plan is to present him as one of the brand’s top babyfaces going forward.

 

Keith Lee officially made his debut on RAW this week and challenged Randy Orton to a match. While Orton was in the ring cutting a promo about his loss to Drew McIntyre at SummerSlam, Lee came out to introduce himself. When Lee told him he wanted a match, Orton told him “maybe later.” The two faced off later in the night but Drew McIntyre came out and attacked Randy Orton. You can check out some highlights of Lee’s RAW debut below

 

As seen during Monday night’s WWE RAW broadcast, Keith Lee debuted some new ring gear and a new theme song and many fans weren’t happy about. Lee took to Twitter earlier today, responding to several fans who criticized him. As previously reported, the reason Lee’s theme song was changed is because WWE wants talent to move away from using CFO$ themes as the two are no longer working together.

 

Lee making his Raw debut heading straight into a programme with arguably the top heel currently in WWE speaks volumes about the plans for Lee. I've said this many times before but Lee is almost the prototype of a top WWE star, he's a big guy, charismatic and can work, he has that IT factor which seems pretty rare these days. Hopefully Lee can become the top face of the brand alongside Drew McIntyre, these two are definitely a big part of the future WWE. 

It was strange and disappointing to see Lee come out to horribly generic theme music rather than his NXT theme which of course was much more personal to him and a great fit for his character, but it seems this is very much a business move due to contractual issues with WWE changing music companies so as Lee said that's something that is out of his hands and I'm sure the current theme is temporary while WWE have a new and better theme song made for him. 

As for his new ring gear I don't have a problem with it. Keith Lee is a super-heavyweight he looks larger than life but like many top super-heavyweight wrestlers past and present he doesn't have the most chiselled looking physique and wrestling in trunks isn't the most flattering look for him, there is no harm in having gear that hides some of the less aesthetically appealing parts of his look, it was still sports/wrestling attire, what I don't like to see is wrestlers competing in gear that is in no way practical for athletic activity, e.g. jeans or a shirt and tie, it always annoyed me that John Cena as the top guy in the company often wrestled in baggy denim shorts.

Edited by Fletch - 27/August/2020 at 15:06

Having a feud with Retribution could provide this as it is heavily rumored that Dominik Dijakovic is in Retribution and anyone who has watched NXT knows that Lee v Dijakovic provided a handful of the greatest big man wrestling matches in WWE history - they were that good.

The angle with Orton and Drew isnt really doing anything for him in my opinion other than getting him to the top of the card quickly - i dont think non-NXT fans will really be behind him as of yet

His clean win over Orton at Payback was great that was the smart way to book him but since that hes felt like a extra in the Orton/McIntyre feud and his matches have been littered with non-finishes and booking that hasn't been particularly flattering to him in the ring I would say he's been made to look inferior to Orton and McIntyre at times. 

Add to the fact they took away his very cool NXT theme music replacing it with one of the most horribly generic theme song's I've ever heard which just doesn't fit his character, and then there are the constant tweaks to his ring gear which I personally didn't see as a big deal at first but each week he seems to be trying out some new gear it's like they are desperate to cover his physique but can't decide which look is best and it's not doing him any favours. 

At this point if there is a draft as rumoured in October I would consider moving him to Smackdown and hitting the reset button.

It's a shame he missed the Royal Rumble match but turned up on Raw.

It must have been because he was a contact of his girlfriend who contacted Covid.

I can see him turning heel this year because he's already a stale babyface going nowhere.

Id also like to see him have a sort of heel run but to be honest - he needs to be booked in matches like he was in NXT, thats what got him noticed in the first place.

Hes too middle of the road on the main roster up to this point at least - it could be worse though, they could have had him in the worst stable in WWE history and totally rebranded him and took everything good away from him like they did with Dijakovic