Did The McMahon's Officially Abolish WWE's Rematch Clause on Raw?

We're not sure when it was officially put into law, but for the last several years WWE Champions had the perk of a guaranteed rematch if they were to lose their title. But on Raw this Monday, Shane McMahon looked to kill that old piece of legislation.

Drake Maverick and AOP approached McMahon backstage on Raw expecting to be handed a rematch for the Tag Team Championships. But McMahon cut them down, saying that clause they aimed to invoke was "antiquated" and no longer a part of WWE's world.

This change appears to fit into McMahon and his family's decree in Raw's opening segment that things in WWE were about to change. And apparently, the mandatory rematch clause was one of the first things on the McMahon's chopping block.

While this was a stipulation that governed WWE at times, the rematch clause mostly used in an arbitrary fashion. Just ask the first-ever Universal Champion Finn Balor – who was forced to relinquish the title after a shoulder injury in 2016 and had to wait till 2018 for Roman Reigns to beat him in a highly predictable Raw match.

But now that the rematch clause is gone, WWE won't have to operate around it. Instead, when a champion gets beat, it will be final. This makes the stakes of championship matches even higher as the incumbent will understand that a loss won't be extended their guaranteed rematch and winning becomes all-the-more essential.

Removing the clause will make WWE move faster. It seems like feuds drag on for months, sometimes only for the sake of granting the rematch rights. But with it gone, WWE is forced to move into a new direction instead of squatting in the same story for multiple pay-per-views.

Even more, the exit of this rule will protect WWE Superstars. Momentum is an undeniable element in WWE and if a champion loses his title at a pay-per-view only to lose their rematch a month later, that means they've endured back-to-back championship losses. Why should a former WWE champion lose their gold and immediately begin a losing streak? The most recent example of this would be AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan. After losing his WWE Championship on SmackDown, Styles lost year again at TLC after invoking his rematch clause. While he'll certainly be OK, Styles has ended 2018 on a low note that was held a little too long thanks to the to the mandatory clause.

But now, losses matter enough that we won't need two servings of them. We're still not sure what the McMahon's have in store for us in this new regime, but the removal of this law will prove to be a good thing.