Since the 1,000th episode of RAW, the WWE has gone and made RAW into a three-hour show now, up from the previous format of two hours. Nowadays, three hours is just way too long to be watching wrestling, and I can’t help but think back to how I did on such a regular basis when I was in high school. Clearly, this is one of those situations where I feel like I’m showing my age, and I already don’t feel like I have enough time in the days sometimes. Also, I think the fact that wrestling often conflicts with baseball during the summer has something to do with it as well.
But anyway, the fact that RAW now demands its wrestlers and personnel to be present for a three-hour program, I can’t help but feel a little concern for the direction of the company. Now I’m sure that the WWE will be fine, because unlike its former competition in WCW, they’re run by smart, competent people. But the concern does have to do a lot with WCW, because with a three-hour show on Monday, and a two-hour on Friday, WWE is currently riding the same kind of blueprint that essentially ended up being the death of WCW.
Seriously, if you look back to the history of WCW, or read the book “The Death of WCW,” which was written by the guys who produce WrestleCrap.com, pretty much all signs of the company’s demise really points towards the late-week program that WCW introduced, Thunder.
Not to say that Thunder itself killed WCW, but it became a situation where WCW added an entirely new show, with two more hours demanded of the wrestlers and personnel, of television time to tape and produce every single week. And unlike professional sports, where unions can go on strike and cry foul for more work expected from the talent, wrestling is an industry that is not unionized, so no such opposition to an extra show can really happen.
This didn’t affect the big stars of wrestling as much, in fact was probably more helpful at giving them more exposure to show off their merchandise and product so that they could make more money, but for all the mid-carders and jobbers, this was essentially more time that they had to be crammed into an arena, with not really much more pay to reflect for it. Combine this kind of unhappiness with the already tumultuous WCW environment, and the company began to really escalate into its eventual demise.
In short, the introduction of another show taxed the WCW roster, stretched the talent out further, and created more room for politicking and an arena for complaints to grow. The big stars would get even more television time, and everyone else would be even unhappier that they couldn’t even make it onto a second weekly show. Eventually, Thunder’s ratings became so bad that a new unhappiness of being on the “B-show” emerged, from wrestlers who resented not getting shown on Nitro, and settling for the less-watched Thunder.
And then the company folded, and was liquidated by Vince McMahon.
With Smackdown already in existence, the WWE isn’t going in the exact same direction as WCW. They’ve been fairly wise to treat each show as their own fairly unique entities, but throughout the last two years, the overlap has grown to the point where the John Cenas, CM Punks, Alberto Del Rios and Sheamuses are regularly appearing on both shows regardless. It’s only going to be a matter of time when the lower-card guys are going to feel slighted and unhappy that guys from other shows are hogging up TV time that they could be getting, if it’s not already the case now, I don’t know how wrestlers feel backstage.
But adding a third hour seems like something that could be taxing to the current WWE roster. I’ve only seen two episodes of the new three-hour format, and there’s really not much more action in an extra hour as much as it is the WWE putting together all these video packages and PSA and schilling social media. But you never know when there might come a day where Twitter and YouTube channels become less relevant, or if there will ever be a day when there are no more troops out in the Middle East to pay tribute towards, and then this third hour will become harder to fill. Harder to fill time will ultimately end up turning into time that performers will be expected to fill up, and constantly expecting more from wrestlers might not be a very good thing.
I’ll reiterate that I think the WWE is a smart, adapting and constantly-reinventing entity that will overcome all obstacles in its path; but I’m just trying to get the notion out there that sometimes, having so much time available at their disposal, isn’t always the best thing, especially if there’s little idea on how to fill it.
