WWE Expanding All PPVs by 1 Hour Starting with MitB
 

Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer reported WWE recently informed PPV providers that all PPVs going forward are getting extended by one hour in length.

Regular PPVs will now be 4 hours (plus over-time) while the Big 4 will be 5 hours (plus over-time).

oh no

plz no

More time to practice sweetening crowd noise, I guess.

WrestleMania can get away with this with minimal impact... but EVERYTHING else? Who the fuck wants to sit through four hours of Backlash, or Roadblock, or whatever WCW PPV they decide to temporarily ape this year.

More annoyed at all the Big 4 PPVs starting an hour earlier than the regular PPVs getting bumped by an hour. If WWE keeps the 2 hour format for the pre-show, have zero desire to watch anything WWE related that early in the afternoon.

I love wrestling but I find it hard these days to find the time to fit in a 3 hour pay per view.

I fast forward through most of Raw and SmackDown to hit the points of interest which are fewer and farther between these days.

There is just nothing consistent or innovative to draw me in enough times.

---
Case in point.

AJ Styles is WWE Champion on SmackDown, yet I hardly care. Before his debut in the WWE I would scour the internet for his newest or rarest matches.

Love Shinsuke Nakamura but if I miss his act in WWE, I don't care.

Daniel Bryan is back wrestling but it doesn't even feel like it anymore.
He's just ... there. Much like most of the stacked roster.

Nothing truly feels special. Maybe the odd sighting of The Undertaker does or a Seth Rollins versus anybody match makes you wonder why the hell the WWE did not immediately push him to the TOP the second he returned from injury.

The booking and writing of the shows is terrible.

I've got no problem with this if it actually means 2-3 more matches on a card and not 45 minutes of video packages....

I think they might be getting close to oversaturation with their hardest of hardcore fans (Not all of them obviously but a significant portion).


Time will tell if people start to tune out but I'd be lying if I didn't say I've been getting a tad more burnt out each year from watching the product as often...I find myself 'zoning out' more and more during SD, RAW and PPVs

Yay longer PPVs because they decide to make all of them dual branded. Should have just left it as is with only the big 4 being dual brand; gave more time to each brand at their specific PPVs and the extra time between those shows allowed them more time to build up feuds. This is just dumb at this point.

They may as well merge the rosters. Honestly think the roster split will end within the next year considering the new deal with Fox. I don't see Fox making that deal if WWE can just put all their big stars on RAW and never have them appear on the Fox programming. Merge the rosters and trim some fat; let some people go to the indies or NJPW and build themselves up a bit via the experience and then bring them back later on if it warrants it. Put the cruisers back on the main shows and nix 205 live. Cut RAW back to 2 hours and maybe air NXT on TV to make up for the lost hour of programming. Would give them a stronger roster, save them money, get the up and comers some more exposure for when they hit the main roster....and would probably not feel as oversaturated.

That turned into a mini-rant, didn't it?

You think they might be getting close to that point, eh?

I hope every ppv is going to have an hour long iron man match bc that's the only way this makes any sense. FFS Vince Rasslemania was terrible at the end bc of how long it was. The fans were burned out. This is gonna get Roman over now for sure.

the good thing about the network you don't have to watch the whole thing live, I say more people are going to do that. sucks for the live crowd though. with the wwe now getting more from tv deals they should go back to 6 of the old style ppvs, and do 6 wwe special network big shows

Well, I know it will take me 2 days to watch the show now.

They were already doing this anyway.

lmao

I guess we can look forward to exciting segments, such as a midcarder vs one member of a tag team in a match with no build up other than a dull confrontation on the pre-show.

Fuck ya. More wrestling.

WWE should just be a 24/7 livestream. The show literally never ends.

gross

The year is 2037.

It's 9AM on a Tuesday morning in August. SummerRaw just ended.

Smackdown is starting and will end at 3AM on the first Saturday in September to be followed by September's Main Event which will run until October 3rd.

This is fucking hilarious. Company has probably never been better off but is a complete dumpster fire as far as producing actual quality content.

WWE is in such a weird place. Based on what you see on TV, it'd be easy to say the company is lazy. But it's really not true. They're being shit, but in no way are they being lazy. You still have the same one guy in charge but think about how many things he's balancing. They make movies. They are trying to expand internationally. They run RAW, SmackDown, Main Event, 205 Live, NXT and an assortment of other tournaments and live events.

I've said it before that I think part of why WWE's storytelling can often seem really basic and boring is that they are also airing it internationally and trying to build those brands. But on top of that, they are doing like a million other things.They literally announce where they are going for WrestleMania before that year's WrestleMania airs. That involves meeting with those cities, branding it, all sorts of stuff. And it would seem like Vince has his hands on all of that and then he also has to negotiate the television deals and is the guy who makes the final call on the actual product.

I think it's the exact opposite of them being lazy. I think they have basically one guy trying to do so much. There's a reason why the slightest hint of Vince stepping down causes the stock price to drop.

Yep, certainly spread far too thin. Plus IMO Vince (albeit likely still capable of some gems) has lost much of his Midas touch.

Which has nothing to do with laziness as much as it has to do with not being that great creatively anymore. Seems to be great at many other things like inking a fucking insane deal with fox and also keeping his brand relevant and strong.

I think in terms of the Midcard down they are extremely lazy. There is no character development whatsoever. They have 2 large teams of full time writers, and focus on 40% of the talent only.

Look at somebody like Bobby Roode, he came from NXT with no hype or promotion, he just showed up, was cheered based on his NXT run, and has just been the guy with good music and fancy robes since.

Sure he won the U.S. Title, and has been featured weekly and on PPVs, but what about him is any different from say Shelton Benjamin?

Professional writers should be able to do better.

IMO that is by design. Only guys "who earn it" or are "the chosen ones" get featured prominently. Everyone else is essentially a prop.

Can't have anyone be bigger than the company.

To be a little fair, its not remotely easy to book a wrestling promotion. Thinking of ideas for dozens of people (in WWE's case over 100), having every single person pitching their own ideas at you or wanting to change every single thing you tell them to do, sometimes just doing it without asking you.

Basically, the one job every fan wants (booker) is by far the fucking worst job in pro wrestling.

Honestly with the women being nearly equally branded the extension was needed to fit everything in.

Im glad I dont watch any more though. That would be a long way to spend a night.

I honestly think just feature different people each week. Properly map out storylines for them for at least 6 months (of course easier said than done with injuries and whatnot) and you give them one or two angles each month on RAW.

And I think "booking" would be immeasurably easier without a team of 7,000 writers.Just a tight-knit team of wrestling-savvy minds instead. however given "the brand" and how they are on network television I get you can't be like "Here's our booker Ole Anderson, he's largely responsible for our 12 hours of content you see a week".

I get that it's cliche now, but scripting so heavily handcuffs the fuck out of them. However it's a catch 22 because it's the only way to look "professional" and like a strong international brand.

But to trot our Bayley and Sascha, and Elias and Roode, and even for Smackdown SHINSUKE AND FUCKING AJ STYLES week after week after week to have the same fucking match is insane to me.

Yup. That's why I barely pay any attention. The show is usually background noise if its on at all. It's the same shit over and over again.

I remember during the height of the wrestling sim era, I used to think wrestling would rule so much ass if the show was just wall to wall good matches with little else in between.

That's essentially what we have now, and its boring.

Well kind of. The matches aren't good because there's no heat and it's the same exact match every week.

Needs to be complemented with compelling storylines.

WWE loves its TV writers that don't know about wrestling.

at the end of the day though I'm pretty sure the worst ideas are Vince's lol

I'm sure an actual GOOD t.v. writer (ie. not a fucking comedian) could be good for WWE.

Like I'm sure if you gave the head writer job of the WWE to the writer of The Wire it'd be pretty decent or at least interesting. But I'm sorry, as much as Patrice O'neal was a hilarious fucking guy, I don't need him booking my favourite wresters lol

You do realize there's a musical number from Elias almost every week, right? Add to that the dancing of No Way Jose and I don't see how you can miss this. This is right up your alley.

Well when you put it that way maybe Ive had it wrong this whole time

I've been shouting this for years. Fuck workrate. Give me an engaging storyline.

I dont want storylines, I want engaging workers. I never gave a fuck what Brody or Hansen were doing angle wise. they carried themselves in a way that I couldn't look away. I want big tough guys that work in a way that is believable.

This in itself organically creates storylines IMO

I'm all for comedy acts or segments, if they're 1. not overly done or relied upon, 2. actually funny, and more importantly 3. aren't essentially a pro wrestling parody and/or don't shit on the product with pretty blatant hints of "we all know this is fake bullshit" by the talent and the announcers. Today, WWE does all of this poorly with its "comedy".

Wrestlemania well on its way to lasting 12 hours and finishing up around 3am

Remember when the In Your House PPVs were every month and only 2 hours?

Based on stories from former writers, a lot of that is due to Vince's crazy habits in Creative especially with him constantly changing things. Every time they do manage to hire decent writers, they never last long in the company because of this and work attrition.

Even worse whenever they hire continuity editor since they last a lot less on the job than the writers do.

A few years ago I would have been in this thread complaining, but have just lost the will now. Apathy has set in. I don't watch anymore and have moved on.

It's now fully a kids show with the same formula every week.

In days gone by, New Day would have been split ages ago, as it is beyond stale, but the kids keep buying the wacky merch, so it just keeps going and going.

TV isn't as important as it was, just produce mindnumbing content, and lots of it, that will keep kids buying your crap, and call it a day.

UPDATE:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Report: <br><br>WWE Is Considering Selling Broadcast Rights To Their &quot;Big 4&quot; PPV's To Fox Or Other Major National Channels To Air These PPV's On Live TV Instead Of The WWE Network. This Change In Business Strategy Is Due To The Current High Demand Of Their Programming <a href="https://t.co/HrZ2OPDFjG">pic.twitter.com/HrZ2OPDFjG</a></p>&mdash; SW (@SliceWrestling) <a href="https://twitter.com/SliceWrestling/status/999010077825818625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 22, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I hope they do so I can finally convince myself to cancel the Network.

Kind of like how every episode of Pokemon would have Ash encounter someone on his travels and learn a moral lesson, while Team Rocket attacks, gives the same promo, and then does the job.

Plus the in-ring action is supposed to tell a story.

That's big. More viewers.

Really donut want commercials in the middle of the Royal Rumble match or WrestleMania matches

yeah that would hurt the network losing the big 4. wrestlemania month is the only time I buy the network.

Exactly like this, was gonna use Power Rangers, but Pokémon is more apt..

Theres no fn way FOX or any other network is going to broadcast 5 hours of Wrestlemania or any of the other big ppvs.

longer Roman Reigns matches

More Roman Reigns. More commercials. YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

I don't know about that, networks are all about live programing as it leads to less DVR use. Not going to say entirely because I DVR Raw and Smackdown and watch later but I won't DVR NFL, MLB or NASCAR. If networks see WWE programing falling in line with live sporting events then I could see them getting a big deal out this.

The first thought that ran through my head when I read this was "What the fuck for?"

Then I scroll into the second page and read Slik's tweet that WWE has a "high demand for the programming". And I then thought "Really?".

What's the high demand when the product for roughly the last year has for the most part sucked?

WWE would either need Mania to air even earlier in the day or have a mid-show break for local news stuff.

The Superbowl can get away with it since FOX only hosts it once every 3 years and FOX can just push it to 11PM if needed like others do unlike Mania which doesn't end till well after 11PM now.

part of mania could be on fs1 then do the prime 4 hours on main fox

I'm not convinced that it can last forever. At some point, when people drop off because it's just too gross, what then? That snap-back is going to be hard. If they just go so out of vogue that they can't retain 1 million viewers or can't sell out a major show like a SummerSlam, because no one wants to go to those things anymore, at some point those revenue streams are going to have to change in terms of the flow expected, which means expenses are going to have to change dramatically, which means that perception is going to change further.

I'm not sure the WWE is the rolling juggernaut its recent financial coups would have you believe.

Okay, I was thinking about mentioning this as its something I was sort of thinking about when bored the other day, but it's actually come up, so that's cool:

I was actually thinking that it would benefit the WWE with these television deals to make use of the network access. SmackDown is going to one, but doing things like Saturday Night's Main Event was back in the day could be a great way to get people in that just wouldn't check out other WWE things, or not have the chance to.

This got me thinking that instead of doing SNME, they should just put Survivor Series on NBC or something. In my perfect little fantasy scenario, they got Shawn Michaels to come out of retirement and wrestle Samoa Joe on it as something landmark and special, but whatever. It'd be interesting to know what a major show would get on NBC or something like that.

I didn't think they would do it with all the major shows, but I think their PPVs that aren't really PPVs and don't have that intrinsic value would be more useful pimped out to networks. I still think the Royal Rumble, WrestleMania and probably SummerSlam should be traditional PPVs, or things that you need to purchase through the Network at least, but building up free-to-air TV specials that people give a shit about (hopefully) could be a great tool.

It also forces you to work within timing parameters again, which is a skill you don't really want to lose as a company, and creates shows that are going to be a lot more digestible as your WWE Network Specials continue to suck wind and kill crowds.

Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Money in the Bank and SummerSlam could be prestige-tier shows; Fastlane (to boost interest heading into WrestleMania), Backlash (to play on interest coming out of WrestleMania), No Mercy (September) and Survivor Series could be NBC/FOX specials.

Not like PPVs don't already have commercials, they'd either expand the time given for that or do the side by side that they do for Raw and Smackdown.

Vince has been in the game for a long time now, and things change. How could anyone that has been going to work every day for 40 years, that has had to deal with the constantly movement of the product be on the cutting edge? When has the dude ever had a chance to step back and look at things from outside -- or even above?

Vince has lucked into a lot too. There have been some products and some minds that could have really taken it to him, but his biggest rival was Bischoff, who signed Hogan to a deal with creative license, which was always going to come back and bite them. Even then he got Austin and Rock coming up so close to each other, got some great people from WCW's mismanagement and now has a monopoly on a product that can largely sell on the nostalgia from those more competitive times.

These new television deals are a symptom of TV changing in a way that Vince could have never even predicted when they went back to USA Network last decade, let alone when he first took WWF national. UFC's success and popularity has allowed big money deals to be thrown around for WWE, and he's got no problem capitalizing on foreign propaganda initiatves either. It's like he's got the world's only supply for something that isn't even really in demand, but will sell because it resembles something that people think they used to like.

Ace scenario! Making RR, WM and SS available through the Network is a good idea as people will definitely subscribe for those shows. I think WWE will learn how to maximize their time w/ these new deals.

Only 35 minutes of video packages. Gotta squeeze in more commercials... on a PPV!

It's so odd how the company has slid into what it is content-wise now. It feels like we've had the same thing for a long time, but when you look at what WWE is now to what it was, the difference is jarring. It's just...a fucked presentation, haha.

I used to think of Vince as a promo guy, but no one talks really well anymore. Everyone has a script and they just stand around and try and sound witty and eloquent without offending anyone. It's like...where are the balls in these promos? Vince always seemed like a guy who was all about the presentation of people as stars and these star personalities, but now he's almost phobic of anyone with genuine charisma.

The work in the ring is so fucking gentrified. It's one of my least favorite aspects of wrestling today. Everyone does the exact match, they just have different "trademark moves" that you just slot into the position. They really do wrestle like video game characters that have been programmed to all have a few specials. It's so fucking gross, and I object to the suggestion you occasionally hear that the work is better now than it's ever been, because the matches are longer and there are lots of great wrestlers on the roster. None of them can hold my attention because their work isn't organic and structured to make me believe in them or invest any emotion. They aren't working properly.

The promos suck, the ring work sucks, the personalities suck, the presentation is this bright pinwheel of slogans and gloss. I just want the work back in the WWE, with some genuine stars who talk shit and wrestle like they're in something that's actually competitve, instead of the socialist compound that wrestling has become. I want the politics and the backstage shoot for position to come back, because that at least made something about the business real. That the top guy had a spot they wanted to protect instead of petitioning for Zack Ryder to get a token run with a belt.

The business has got no balls to it anymore. No one means it and the only people that are getting into it are geek marks that kind of perpetuate the tropes that get in the way, because we're all so used to them. No one tries to work anymore, and weirdly enough people think that working is "bad" and disrespectful to fans or whatever. People have forgotten what the goal of this is, and why that makes the business so fascinating.

I'm all about the big 4 having extended times and the PPV's with gimmicks being longer. But you aren't selling me on the importance of having Great Balls of Fire run for 4 hours especially when Brock isn't even defending his title at sub big 4 ppv's

According to PWI, WWE confirmed the start time for PPVs will now be pushed back an hour although all events being 4 hours won't be the standard, at least for now. They just want to leave enough wiggle room to be able to go well over the 3 hour limit for events going forward.

On the note of WWE putting the big four on Network TV...

Obviously a golden idea for WWE but not for me. I like having control over the show, I really like WWE Network and streaming/casting on the service is really easy and high quality. Sure the shows are already filled with commercials but they come only when breaks are happening. I dunno, it would be a change that makes me uncomfortable.

I can't fathom watching something for 4 hours every month. I still haven't watched Wrestlemania because it's so ridiculously long.

I always tell myself that I am going to go to the movies more often, and then I think "Nah. Sitting down for 3 hours is going to suck."