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.

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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.