THREE HOUR TIMESLOT IS KILLING RAW—PERIOD

[thedarkness214]

PYROANDBALLYHOO.COM

No, I AM NOT business savvy—-but, I get it. The USA NETWORK is coughing up boo-coo dollars for the WWE to provide them with a third hour of programming every Monday night—and Vince McMahon is gladly cashing the check—understood. However, and not knowing what that price tag is, at some point I believe that Vince really needs to start looking at is the extra cash flow worth the damage that is being down to his valuable property–RAW–in the long run?

Up until I started this website, there was just NO WAY that I was watching a three-hour wrestling marathon on Monday nights—no way. For starters, who has that kind of attention span? In 2014, with all the options before us, who in their right mind is going to sit through the same program for 180 minutes? I mean, we’re not talking about witnessing a live execution here, where talking about seeing 15 minute wrestling matches, after wrestling matches, with the majority of them really not meaning anything. Even the WWE realizes that viewers are going to come and go throughout those three hours, but is that truly what they want? Channel surfers to tune in and hang around for a few in favor of investing in the entire show?!

You have to understand, this is not a knock on the product whatsoever. The truth is, I can’t think of anything on TV that wouldn’t drag, be boring or NON-COMPELLING for three hours—NOT ONE THING. It’s painful for me to sit there from 6-9 every Monday night–it really is. If it weren’t my job to do an audio Raw Review for the VIP Members of this site immediately following the show—there is NO WAY that I would put myself through the pain and agony—NO WAY! And, if the long, sometimes meaningless matches with commercial breaks weren’t enough, the EXCRUCIATING re-caps over, and over and over again until we, ourselves, know the dialogue of every wrestler on the show by heart! It is so obvious each, and every week, that the writers just stretch out RAW in an effort to fulfill their obligation to USA. It’s the equivalent of your landscaping service taking two hours to cut your lawn, when it reality it should tale 30 minutes, because they’re GETTING PAID BY THE HOUR!!! Same exact thing is happening here.

Again, I suck at business, and that’s why Vince could afford to pay Rihanna to perform in his living room every week while I have to settle for a $12.99 CD, but the product is just so severely being sacrificed here to the point of turning people off. There are actually SIXTEEN SEGMENTS of wrestling on Monday nights—SIXTEEN. During the Attitude Era you had TEN. With ten segments you can write the show in such away that the action, energy and excitement just NEVER stops—not even for a second. With three hours—you could strap this show on the back of the Energizer Bunny, feed him speed in place of his rabbit pellets, and we’d STILL be in front of our television sets on our hands and knees begging our sweet, sweet Jesus—FOR THIS SHOW TO END ALREADY!!!

I put much heat on the writer’s, because I expect more from them, but having to be creative for three hours, I think Walt Disney, Stephen King and George Lucas COMBINED would be challenged with that task! It’s too much! And, on top of that, you’ve giving the WWE Universe five hours of wrestling per week between RAW and SMACKDOWN, and you STILL want them to buy the WWE Network even if it’s only $9.99?! How much time do you want them to invest? Honestly, I, myself would be sick of even looking at freakin’ LANA for that amount of time!!!

[Shisen Kopf]

RIP George Lucas

[Simple Fan]

I watch all three hours every week and enjoy it the only time I turn away is if the Cowboys are on MNF. As a fan of all wrestling its nice to have a 3 hour show to watch

[Taft]

fucking Hulu that shit for 1 hour and you just get the important bits.

[#1-norm-fan]

I tend to either have Raw on in the background so I can turn my attention to the important bits or watch it afterward and take advantage of fast forward.

Normally 3 hours of wrestling would be fantastic. At another point in time it seems like an extra hour would be an awesome way to push even more talent at once. In theory with all this TV time, there should be more over guys than ever before. Instead... there might be LESS than ever before. Russo's pretty spot on here. It's not treated as a way to focus on more compelling storylines. It's treated as a chore and they just stretch it by giving a bunch of meaningless matches more time.

[OverTaker]

DVR that shit like #1 wwf fan. I skip through most matches, boring segments and can knock out a 3 hour program in less than 1 or 2 hours.

[Rammsteinmad]

I'd prefer it if they went back to two hours and made Smackdown a major show again.

[SlickyTrickyDamon]

Would the Shield have had such quality matches on television during their run had the show been 2 hours? No, they would have cut it down and it wouldn't have been as good. Not just the Shield but Cesaro, Daniel Bryan that Punk/Cena match before Mania etc.

Longer matches are better because it keeps them at better shape cardio wise to go longer on PPV.

[Tom Guycott]

fucking Hulu that shit for 1 hour and you just get the important bits.

The problem with this is "the important bits" are only what WWE deems important for that show. Same difference for "AM RAW". I get giving everyone jobber entrances and chopping out the recaps, but there have been times where segments and/or promos were cut from one week, then then they SHOW the continuing angle the next week (or the week after), and you have no idea what started it. Or a damn good wrestling match (read: the point of watching wrestling to begin with) that didn't have anything to do with the main event picture, so it was cut entirely.


And a 3 hour show would be fine if they just utilized their time better. Too much trying to get people to order the network, give a fuck about Total Divas, recaps of last week, last smackdown, even and last segment, and overdeveloping the main event angle. All that time wasted that could be some more matches or promos to help get underutilized people some exposure. Nobody "needs" to see Cena (easy example) 8 times a night. Once or twice is money's worth. And he damn sure doesn't need to close the show all the time (again, I'm just using him as an example).

[Anybody Thrilla]

Yes, essentially what Guycott said. The three hours isn't the problem. What they choose to do with that time is the problem. The actual MATCHES on Raw are at an all-time high quality, no matter how unimportant most of it is made to feel.

[#1-norm-fan]

I can't get into a match if it's meaningless within the story. I don't just mean title matches. Before, everything had a purpose. Until somewhat recently, a match like Cena vs Cesaro would be meaningful in that you know Cena is gonna win but Cesaro actually giving him a fight would tell you "Okay. Cena's obviously better but that match signaled that Cesaro is not fucking around and he's a threat to people."

Now a guy can give Cena a fight one month and then job to Sin Cara in 2 minutes the next month because there's no continuity in how good people are. Guys come off like they're a threat one month because they're building to a feud at the upcoming PPV. Suddenly the next month they forget how to compete somehow and become jobbers. Then after a couple months of that they decide to put them in a feud and they remember how to wrestle again. Then after that feud, they forget again.

After you get used to that being the way it goes, why care who beats who and how competitive it is? Beating a guy above you on the card doesn't mean you're on your way anymore. It means you have a feud this month and he doesn't. Woopty doo. Most matches nowadays seriously come off as the writers saying "the longer they're out there, the less work we have to do putting the show together."

[XL]

I could personally do without the long matches on Raw every week. That's what the PPVs are for. Raw/SmackDown should drive the storyline aspect, it should allow guys to develop their character or mic work to the point where you want to see them on PPV in a match.

I can watch Raw in just over 3 hours. Skip all of the replays, the women's match, any match that, whilst technically sound, isn't really interesting in the story, etc.

[Innovator]

So you're supporting Vince Russo by copying and pasting his stupid rants so no one has to go to his site?

[Theo Dious]

The USA NETWORK is coughing up boo-coo dollars

I take nobody seriously who uses the word "boo-coo."

[thedarkness214]

So you're supporting Vince Russo by copying and pasting his stupid rants so no one has to go to his site?

N0,,,, 1M JU$t 0WN1NG Y0U 1Z @LL,,,,,,

[Mr. Nerfect]

The duration of a program doesn't affect the quality, but in a world where the WWE is still running PPVs once a month, you're almost cramming as much into a RAW as SummerSlam some nights. In theory, having such stacked RAWs could negatively affect PPV business and the WWE Network.

I have never understood why the WWE has "B-shows." When you've got Superstars, Main Event and SmackDown to also cram content into, you have plenty of time in a week to showcase a lot of talent and give them meaningful developments. Yet the WWE actually chooses to make Superstars almost entirely irrelevant to the ongoings of RAW. And recently SmackDown has been used as a trial ground for promos and matches to later air on RAW. Everything Chris Jericho said to Bray Wyatt in their "One-on-One" this week was said in a backstage interview with Renee Young on SmackDown, for example.

I think everything the WWE is doing is working for them. It seems somewhat sustainable and every week on RAW you have one segment advertised for Main Event and SmackDown. It's very robotic and a bit of a pattern-holder though. I don't think allows much room for exciting growth. But the WWE may not be after that.

[Tom Guycott]

The duration of a program doesn't affect the quality, but in a world where the WWE is still running PPVs once a month, you're almost cramming as much into a RAW as SummerSlam some nights. In theory, having such stacked RAWs could negatively affect PPV business and the WWE Network.



This is another issue. Going back to this past RAW, there was a time where that match between Thwagger and Cesaro would have been the main event of the card. Now, it's barely midcard and lost in the shuffle and wasn't important except to have more literal flag waving at the end by "Bigg Hoss" and Rusev... which is kind of a thing that has been happening between the two for weeks. Every show. We're aware the angle is there, they don't have to keep pointing at it every RAW. They're having a flag match at Summer Slam. We get it. Use some of that TV time for other shit. Other people. Other angles.