So we are roughly a month and a half away from Raw becoming a 3 hour show on a weekly basis and with a 3 hour episode coming up next week, lets have a little chat about this.
I assumed this would be a good time to discuss this coming off an episode of a 2 hours Raw that felt like creative was scrapping from below the bucket just as an attempt to kill time. Seriously, the most exciting thing about that episode was the announcement that Vince McMahon would be appearing next week…well that and the furthering of the Punk/Bryan/AJ/Kane story.
The point being, it seemed like such a struggle for WWE to come up with a decent 2 hour show about half the time and so what confidence (not much) I had in them producing a consistently decent 3 hour show is slipping away quickly. So what is WWE to do when it comes down to actually running these 3 hours shows?
Well starting with next week, my dream is to have Vince seated (like the ridiculous chair from “The Trial of Eric Bischoff”) and to take this whole job performance evaluation thing and blow it up exponentially. I don’t want Vince to just stop at Laurinaitis, I want him to evaluated every employee in the middle of that ring. I’m talking about wrestlers, announcers, commentators, time keepers, cameramen, catering, etc. Each of them being called out and let Vince just sink his teeth into them and then calling for the next person. I would watch 3 hours of that and eat up every second, wouldn’t you? Or is this just me? I mean, Raw is occasionally a wrestling show anyway so why don’t they do a show without any wrestling, right? (And before you overly-serious sea donkeys jump down my throat about suggesting a non-wrestling show, calm your nuts and come to the realization that sarcasm isn’t something you’ll ever grasp).
But what about July 30th? Or Episode 1001, if you will? Because the 1000th episode will be just fine and all the celebratory segments, surprises and guest appearances will give them plenty to fill time. But 1001 is where it really counts. What options are there?
One way to go is to do away with the dot com shows. Take all the content that would be on Superstars and NXT and use that for Smackdown. What about Raw? Throw all the top level guys on that show and basically make SD the “mid-to-minor leagues.” Maybe you could even throw the mid card belts on there or have frequent appearances by the top guys on SD but keep their main story with Raw. That would give plenty of potential stories on Raw, putting some wrestlers against guys they haven’t faced before (or at least rarely) and then plenty of lower guys get time to potentially shine…maybe set up some sort of system where a guy could make it up to the big show and a guy on Raw that’s struggle could get demoted to Smackdown, that’s a pretty decent story in itself. Now, the biggest concern about that would be if fans would be willing to tune into SD if non of the major guys are on there on a regular basis. However, I believe ratings would be just fine (if not climb) if you use whoever the people are that currently do creative for NXT because that stuff has been gold lately. Also, it would help if commentating was simply Josh Matthews and Regal…Raw can be Cole and Booker (notice there’s no mention of Lawler and his sauced-up perv-o-meter).
Another option would be to do something different with one of the hours, presumably the first one. Maybe have something along the lines of the initial NXT competitions and then lead into the main show. The problem with that, again, would be ratings. There’s been talk of the new 3 hour show will be more interactive much like the “Power to the People” episodes and maybe there’s a miracle that could be limited to just that first hour to get people into it and those could involve wrestlers that haven’t been written into the show.
However that may be wishful thinking because WWE is going to use the interactive feature any chance they get and in probably any segment (much like their twitter use). And in all likeliness, we are going to get a 2 hour show stretched into a 3 hour show…so in theory, it’s a one hour show stretched into a 2 hour show stretched into a 3 hour show stretched into limbo and Leo has to shoot himself in the head, right?
But with that being said, what do YOU think would be a good way to put these 3 hour shows together?
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,
Chris
The Answer: the fact that this happened.
