The Appropriate Amount Of Wrestling On Your TV

[ABMorales787]

"Impact Just had 18 minutes of wrestling this week."


"Raw was 48 minutes of recaps."


"NJPW's iPPV had 4 hours of wrestling."


"ROH had a really fucking long main event."
​

The marquee reads "wrestling". It always does. It always has. It actually doesn't say how much though. That old saying never told us that. A show may be 3 hours, 2 or just 1. But just how much wrestling is in it is unknown. Just how much you can actually sit through without a break is another intangible that never gets discussed. I don't know about most people, but I simply cannot sit through 3 hours of Monday Night Raw. I couldn't sit through 3 hours of TNA even though it was 2 hours of advertised wrestling. There's a reason PPV's are held at the least once a month. There's a reason people hate this period of the year for WWE. Waaaay too much wrestling.

These days, it's become clear that plain ol' wrestling is not enough grasp people. Matter of fact, wrestling was pretty small when it was just that. If there wasn't a Larry Zbysko being a cunt to Bruno or a Gorilla Monsoon wrecking everything, it wasn't really selling now was it? It was Gorgeous George's charisma and personality that made him so huge as was with El Santo.

Some people like NJPW and Japanese wrestling. They hold really long ass supercards, so you know. In contrast, AAA, CMLL and other Mexican promotions hold the more standard 3 hour supercards. They just don't go past 4 or 5 a year.

And of course finally there's WWE and TNA. WWE has the benefit of having 7 to 10 hours of programming available a week without counting NXT or Total Divas. They have loads of time to flesh out their stories and have time left over for smaller talents. TNA just has 2 plus 3 when they have one of their 4 PPV's. It really shouldn't be surprising that they have less wrestling in their programming. They need to pitch their stories to get bigger numbers for their big matches. Sometimes they need to follow up on new developments. However there's times when they go overboard and you get the the 10/14/10 edition of TNA Impact. Less than 8 minutes.

Even the most diehard fanatic needs a break from the slamming and suplexing and wants something else. Whether it's a promo or some backstage skit, but not everyone has the same tastes. Because for me personally if I get something fun to watch, I won't care if it was less than 15 minutes of actual in ring action in a 2 hour show.

 

[Slash-LN]

It depends on the quality of the match or segment.

If there's an entertaining segment that takes 20 minutes to pan out I have no problem with it. If it's someone just talking for 20 minutes and there really is nothing else going on then I'm not so favorable.

A friend of mine was at Ring Of Honor last night and he said that the main event might have been the best match he has ever seen. He didn't even bring up how long it was. That wasn't a factor for him. Which is actually saying something for that match because maybe two months ago he had said the idea of wrestling doesn't interest him anymore. Between last night and today I have had about 15 text from him talking about how good the show was.

If there's good quality matches I don't care if they take up 95% of the show.

Usually I like a good mix of wrestling and angles but as long as what I'm seeing is good I don't care if one outweighs the other when it comes to time.

 

[Matty~!]

The New Japan shows might last 4 hours but I don't think there is actually four hours of wrestling on each of their shows. I'm about 2 months behind on their shows right now because I'm in the process of watching the entire G1 Climax tournament, which has had some of the best wrestling I've seen this year. All of the shows have been around 4 hours long but it's probably been around 3 hours of wrestling on each show I would say.

 

[Rooster Smith]

I agree. For me, ten minute matches are fine. Five minutes of "talking" or something non wrestling.

Both can go on for too long or too short. But I think both are important.

 

[DarksideEric]

The New Japan shows might last 4 hours but I don't think there is actually four hours of wrestling on each of their shows. I'm about 2 months behind on their shows right now because I'm in the process of watching the entire G1 Climax tournament, which has had some of the best wrestling I've seen this year. All of the shows have been around 4 hours long but it's probably been around 3 hours of wrestling on each show I would say.

Side question, if I may, where can I find these in their entirety?

For me, as someone mentioned earlier, it's all about the quality, not the quantity.

One of my favorite match type is the Iron Man Match. Both Shawn/Bret and Rock/HHH wrestled for 60 minutes, but (in my view) the quality of Shawn/Bret was far superior to that of Rock/HHH.

Same goes for segments. I'll watch the hell out of one of the "This is Your Life" segments or Punk's Pipebombs, but when like Alberto Del Rio is on the mic, I'm doing something else.

 

[Bro. Paul]

I prefer a more wrestling focused show. It's not that I don't like the talking. It can be entertaining too. I just think that wrestling matches can be equally entertaining and it only makes since to me to have a lot of wrestling on a wrestling show.

 

[Spidey Revivey]

I can get behind almost any match as long as the commentary team is, too. They're the ones I look for to sell it to me. Last night the Broadway Brawl Match was pretty bad, yeah, and Triple H telling them he didn't even know what it was but do it anyway at the start really shat all over it. But that team could have saved it by at least staying focused on the match at hand. But what did they do? Talk about old country music stars and selfies. Jesus.

When the team gets stale and start talking nonstop about something that isn't the match in front of them, it's time to stop admitting to being more of a fan of the wrestling than the skits. There's no way anyone can sit there and ignore the team unless they mute their tv screens, which defeats the whole purpose of it being a television show.

So the appropriate amount of wrestling is as much as that table can hype up for us. That's the point of watching and not going to the event ourselves.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

It depends on the quality of the match or segment.

If there's an entertaining segment that takes 20 minutes to pan out I have no problem with it. If it's someone just talking for 20 minutes and there really is nothing else going on then I'm not so favorable.

A friend of mine was at Ring Of Honor last night and he said that the main event might have been the best match he has ever seen. He didn't even bring up how long it was. That wasn't a factor for him. Which is actually saying something for that match because maybe two months ago he had said the idea of wrestling doesn't interest him anymore. Between last night and today I have had about 15 text from him talking about how good the show was.

If there's good quality matches I don't care if they take up 95% of the show.

Usually I like a good mix of wrestling and angles but as long as what I'm seeing is good I don't care if one outweighs the other when it comes to time.

This is pretty much how I see it. If the wrestling is really high quality, then I don't really mind if most of the show is made up of wrestling content sometimes.

Sometimes, more promo segments are necessary and sometimes more wrestling content is necessary. It can depend on who's involved in the match or promo segment, the nature of the feud, the storyline that's ultimately driving everything, etc.

I do get annoyed if it's a show where there's a lot of promo segments going on with the wrestling segments ultimately being irrelevant matches that are lucky to go 3 minutes. The formula kinda looks like this: 40 minutes devoted to promo segments, advertising and maybe even some goofy skit then 4 minutes of wrestling with the formula repeating itself. For instance, if wrestling content for the first 2 hours of Raw is something along the lines of Alberto Del Rio vs. Zack Ryder, Santino Marella & The Great Khali vs. 3MB and Big Show vs. David Otunga, then it's usually a boring show overall. Nothing wrong with a filler match or two on the card here and there, but not when most of the matches on the card are nothing but pure, meaningless drivel.

 

[BaconBits]

I don't particularly care what the ratio of story/promo segments is to actual wrestling.

It's all about the entertainment value of the entire show. If the show is entertaining overall, it doesn't really matter to me if I saw a lot or a little wrestling.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

As long as I get to see a decent amount of good wrestling on a show, I am happy. It's all about finding the balance between in-ring action to further a story, or using promos/interviews/skits to progress the storyline further. Get the amount of wrestling to amount of other stuff ratio ratio wrong and people will moan

I don't have a set number of minutes wrestling I expect from a RAW, as the content of the show changes from week to week, but I like to see a good length main event. It does always piss me off if the last match on a show is just a couple of minutes but we need to remember that the main aim of any show, (not just wrestling) is to be entertaining, so if more time is spent on a hilarious 'This is your life Rock' than anything else, and the fans are happy, then there's not an issue. If people are entertained they will watch, whatever is on the show!

 

[lil steroid meat]

Personally I feel like there's not enough (entertaining) promos. That doesn't mean there is too much wrestling.

I cannot watch a full 2/3 hour RAW, SD, iMPACT because I have a hard time giving a damn about most of the matches.

 

[Dirk]

Raw and SD is only an hour over here, so I can't comment on that, but I always watch the whole Impact when I can. Some people are just spoilt.

I'm a wrestling fan, I don't really care about promos. If it goes past the ten minute mark, it starts to get boring. It's a nice addition to the matches, but it shouldn't be the main focus. I get annoyed if there's an ad-break, a segment, then another ad-break and the segment continues after the break. If that happens during a match, though, I don't mind at all.

If we wanted to watch B-movie actors, we'd rent some cheap-ass Vin Diesel movie. Wrestlers will never win Oscars. It's a good addition, but if the promos don't hype actual matches (like Ryback bullying backstage workers), I don't really care.

 

[Mustang Sally]

It's all about the entertainment value of the entire show.

Exactly. The Main Event program on Wednesday is a good example. Even thought the show goes only one hour.....and much of it gives recaps of what we saw on Monday and Friday nights; the production is slickly done and the show is well-paced, making the action flow.

As for the actual wrestling, there are none of those 45-second wipeout matches in which a rising star quickly destroys a jobber. Instead, each match goes around 15 minutes and gives the performers a chance to work; an opportunity to show what they can really do.

In recent months, a lot has been made of counting up the actual number of minutes we see of actual ring wrestling, but I think how the entire show is put together is a more important measure of quality.

 

[lil steroid meat]

Raw and SD is only an hour over here, so I can't comment on that, but I always watch the whole Impact when I can. Some people are just spoilt.

I'm a wrestling fan, I don't really care about promos. If it goes past the ten minute mark, it starts to get boring. It's a nice addition to the matches, but it shouldn't be the main focus. I get annoyed if there's an ad-break, a segment, then another ad-break and the segment continues after the break. If that happens during a match, though, I don't mind at all.

If we wanted to watch B-movie actors, we'd rent some cheap-ass Vin Diesel movie. Wrestlers will never win Oscars. It's a good addition, but if the promos don't hype actual matches (like Ryback bullying backstage workers), I don't really care.

But that's the thing . . . promos sell matches and make people care about the outcome.

What if promos didn't exist in the 90's? People weren't captivated by Austin's, Rock's, Hogan's, Hall's, Nash's, HHH's, Foley;s, Goldberg's, etc. in-ring work. You did have guys like HBK who could go inside the ring, but the promos and segments always sold the tickets to the PPV's.

I think the bigger problem today is that promos are generic and WWE wastes a lot of time on dumb segments. Instead of telling me what each WWE superstar's New Year's Resolution is, how about let Big E cut a promo . . . we are expected to give a damn about a wrestler's potential and not their characters.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Excellent thread. Or at least, an excellent point. This complaint I hear way too frequently, but there's also a grain of truth in it. How much is too much? How little is too little?

I think it A) depends on the fan, B) depends on the brand, and C)...shit I can't remember what C) was going to be.

...

...Right. C) depends on what's going on with the product at the moment.

First, THE FAN. There are all kinds of different wrestling fans. Some like Japanese strong-style. Some like the weird "realistic" backstage bullshit in TNA. Some like the "WWE style" and a few people are guilty of enjoying the occasional comedy match. Not every show is going to please every fan. So how much or how little WRESTLING you like your sports entertainment product is going to change from person to person.

Second, THE BRAND. WWE has a 3-hour show. In 3 hours, I better get at least 2 or 3 damn good matches. I mean, if you have 3 hours of television every week, and you can't put together at least that much, there's a problem. But I also don't expect 5-6 PPV level matches on every Raw, like some fans do, because that's ridiculous. If every match was PPV quality, the matches on PPV wouldn't seem as special. People can get burnt out on "5-star wrestling" really quickly if it's all they see all the time. Which brings me to Ring of Honor. When I watch ROH I expect nearly every match on the card to try and steal the show. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but that's how they do it. They almost never have squash matches or comedy matches for the sake of breaking up the action; no indie show does, honestly. And in TNA I expect there to be almost no wrestling, and for all the good matches to have commercials at the worst possible times.

Third, THE PRODUCT. Do you know what I remember from the Attitude Era? Not matches. Yes there were some amazing matches, mostly on PPV. Raw had great contests for sure. But it was all about the different characters, and tuning in to see what they were going to do to each other that week. If a story needs time to be told, then it's OK to have more focus on that then wrestling. I prefer it actually. But if there's really nothing interesting going on in the way of storytelling, then it's best to just have your guys go out there and work excellent matches, because forcing bullshit angles people don't care about on us just makes everything worse.

Personally, I actually enjoy the current format for Monday Night Raw. In 2013 they took great strides forward in their in-ring quality. You're getting 2 or 3 really good matches every week, and I hope that continues in 2014. And honestly if they took those matches and cut out an entire hour, I wouldn't be so tired by the end of the night. I just can't sit through 3 hours of Raw every week. That's like 45 minutes of commercials when all is said and done. You give me a two hour show with 20 minutes of commercials, 50 minutes of wrestling, and 50 minutes of storytelling, and I'm a happy camper. On the flip side, when there's too much wrestling I feel myself getting bored. When I watch an ROH iPPV and there's 8 matches that all go 15-20 minutes, and the main event is twice that long, and each match seems to feel similar, I just lose interest. Now, ROH has been really good lately, so I'm just using that as an example mind you, but hopefully that's good enough to get my point across.