As everyone knows by now earlier in the year WWE named new executive directors to handle the creative direction of Raw and Smackdown. At first Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman were given the positions of power to operate Raw and Smackdown to take some pressure off Vince McMahon and shake things up. For obvious reasons though Bischoff was sent home as the match didn't fit and was replaced by Bruce Prichard. However, Heyman has stayed on Raw and things have begun to change and we have started to see the finger prints of an evil genius.  

In recent months Heyman has attempted to push some talent like McIntyre, Alexander, Ricochet, Andrade, and various others. Even though things have seemingly fallen off for Cedric likely due to his promo skills lacking a little bit. I think that things have really hit the ground running for some guys as the fans have taken to Ricochet, Humberto Carillio, and McIntyre as they have been featured in a more prominent role on the show. Ever since the October draft WWE has had to spend time rebuilding Raw and using AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio and Seth Rollins they have planted the ground work to do exactly that. One name I was surprised to his status elevate was Rey Mysterio, but I'm glad they gave him one more push on the top of the company with Brock Lesnar. 

One thing that Paul has been trying to make a focus again is finishing matches with the wrestlers finishing moves instead of using them as a false finish and using jobber matches to allow certain talent to build momentum. The latter point has been a big part of the developing Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy rivalry allowing the up and coming stars to have a one ups man-ship rivalry. Another focus of Paul has been a former calling card of his which was intertwining feuds seen in ECW through the Tommy Dreamer/Raven rivalry. With Rollins feuding with Owens, then planting seeds in a feud with Mysterio which brings Styles or Orton into the rivalry as well. It will be interesting to see where the rebuild of Raw goes in 2020 with a full year of Heyman being able to build the brand to his likeness with some input from Vince McMahon. Either way 2020 will be an interesting year for Raw, WWE and Paul Heyman. 

It is always surprising or borderline shocking when the WWE runs a feud for more than a few months and actually let's the talent talk instead overdoing it with matches. Normally we get sick of seeing some parings of talent after a few weeks, but this feud with Rusev and Lashley has developed into a feud that cannot be missed on a week to week basis. I don't really know what the difference between this feud and when Rusev, Lana, Dolph Ziggler, and Summer Rae had a similar rivalry a few years ago other than chemistry. Lashley has been a man without a direction since his return to WWE last year and then he turned heel and got Lio Rush on his side but that tapered out real quick and never really went anywhere to big with. 

As for Rusev there was time when they had the opportunity to give him a spot as top heel and face, but didn't follow through with it either occasion. Upon his arrival on the main roster Rusev was one of the top heels in the company and had all the momentum in the world then enter his lackluster feud with Cena, and poof it disappeared. Fast forward to the debut of Rusev Day and suddenly Rusev has become the hottest face in WWE and he has another chance to be a top star, but the company kills it for whatever reason. Now after slowly building this long arch and building sympathy for Rusev after he spent weeks being embarrassed by Lana & Lashley things finally started to change. 

Overall this is how a proper long term feud is built starts slow and then adds a reason to hate someone and sympathize with someone else then you're off from there. Even though this feud has it's critics and I'm still unsure about it, but I can put that aside in favor of some long term booking from WWE for once with Rusev & Lashley both bound to benefit from this feud in the long term. I just hope they know when to call it a day and move forward and then have some new planned for both guys after this feud has ran it's course.