Would this seemingly simple move solve Raw's problem?

[shafe_41]

So I was thinking with tonight's 3 hr. Raw just an hour or so away, and WWE Superstars debuting this week, would having Raw be 3 hrs. each week solve all of Raw's problems? Here's why I say this.

We complain there there is no time to develope any kind of memorable storylines and all the matches are short, boring, mean nothing, and etc... Think of what the WWE could utilize with this extra hour. Get rid of WWE Superstars all together and these steps would seemingly make Raw a powerhouse in the ratings that it once was.

1.)They could keep their PG-rating from 8-10. And then jump it up to 14 for that last hour. Remember this is exactly what I believe they did back in that memorable Attitude Era. It was tame for the first hour, then they turned up the heat for the 2nd hour. You could turn on an episode of Raw if someone told you it was on, had no clue what time it was, watched it, and you could immidiately tell what hour of the show Raw was in. This way, they could shake up the segments of the show depending how they want to use certain superstars week to week. Somebody could come out and cut a memorable promo during the beginning of the show, be in line with the PG rating, and then have a great lengthy meaningful match headline the show. Or someone deliver a promo during that 3rd hr, and challenge someone to a headlining match the following week. Things along these lines.

2.) More time equals longer matches. This crap WWE does now with starting a match, showing like 3 minutes, cutting to commercials, and then showing the last 3 minutes of the match... utter garbage. WCW pulled this same crap as did TNA when I started watching it (they still may, but I don't watch TNA much anymore). But with these moves, we miss the meat of some of these matches. There's no need to cut to a commercial in the middle of the matches. Raw got along without doing this for years so why start now? It's rediculous.

3.) More storyline developement! This would allow all the great talent that we don't get to see on TV... to be seen on TV!!! Yes I realize they will be seen on Superstars...but how many memorable matches, moments, or superstars are really going to come out of that show that have the chance to shine as real superstars and showcase their talents? One...maybe. That's even pushing it. All we're going to get with Superstars I believe are all these random clown shoes matches that have zero storylines much like WWE did on Monday nights before Monday night's show became Raw. We're going to see boring headlining matches with zero meanings between Dolph Ziggler and Ricky Ortiz and crap like that. I'm not taking away from them... but SHOW THESE GUYS ON RAW AND GIVE THEM THE CHANCE TO BE SEEN ON THE BIG SHOW. Then with this, they may get some good darkhorse feuds between up and coming talents and then they will get some PPV time. God knows the WWE has enough PPV time to give some to these undercard talents. For christ sake the WWE has a 2 hr. slot starting at 9 PM on CABLE and do nothing with it. Get another hour instead of garbage Law and Order reruns, and give us something Vince.

What does everyone else think about this extra hour? I know I didn't think of everything (good or bad) about this idea, but I think it gives us more good than bad, deals with the ratings complaint we all have, etc... Then when Vince sees his last hour outshowing the first 2 hrs, maybe he'll rethink his idea of changing the ratings to all 14 since this entertainment we all know and love is not, was not, and should never be geared to a family friendly crowd of say... 11 yrs old.

 

[bxbigshow]

USA Network would need to agree to this, which they won't. The WWE right now isn't that attractive to the mainstream. (i.e.-Mickey Rourke got ripped for WM25) So they're also not that attractive to advertisers. And I doubt the WWE's current ad guys are willing to pay for more time.

If they lost ECW, then I'd say do it. That way you don't "burn out" creative. Lord knows how hard it is for 10-15 people to come up with 1 good idea every 8 months.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

Going to three hours would be the death blow to Raw. Remember when Nitro went three hours? Didn't help it too much did it? Same number of talent on the show, same level of talent...yet, they managed to try to fit in more stuff instead of developing what they had. That's the only purpose a 3 hour Raw would serve. The quality would fall even lower, the stories would be worse, and it would ultimately turn into backstage heat with wrestlers wondering why their story isn't getting the exposure it deserves.

Plus there are TWO more shows besides Raw and Smackdown. An hour of ECW and an hour of Superstars would be enough wrestling, then you slap a 3 hour Raw on top it? It spells money loss, something Vince will not tolerate.

What RAW needs is to simply have better quality wrestling and stories...something they're capable of doing with simply focusing on what made them what they are today... SUSPENSE and SWERVES!

Pulling the rug out under us is what keeps people hooked on shows like Lost, House, and Heroes. RAW used to do that during the Attitude era. Not saying WWE needs to go back to this era, but they can take a few pointers from how things worked back then and show all of us that they can still keep you hooked.

 

[colalella2891]

Yea why not? I mean Raw is considered the "A" show anyway so they should.

 

[mikeRC]

Living in the UK I'm a little bit shaky on the details but i assume that because "WWE Superstars" is being aired on a thursday it's testing the waters for head to head competition with TNA.

 

[bulldog76]

No. Three hours? No. One more hour of stars that are not ready? Don't get me wrong. There is not always enough time to showcase the talent they have, but three hour RAWs are novelties and really adds an element that says "Watch. Something big is going to happen."

 

[ThePeoplesChampion]

Im not going to diss it because hey u made very good points....put then again u have to remember USA has to agree to it.....and they would still go up against good shows....then in fall add Monday Night Football to add if anythin take superstars off give that hour to ecw and move ecw to thursdays to test the waters of a thursday night wars but thats another subject....but i will admit wat u had is a good idea just maybe too many factors pushing away from it

 

[Diablosbomb]

For all those saying USA wouldn't agree, well they asked Mcmahon to make RAW 3 hrs. USA wants another hours added onto it and Vince said no. So it is actually Vince that has to agree for this to happen

 

[MachoManiac]

I would have to say no to a 3 hour Raw. Creative has a hard time coming up with ideas for a 2 hour show. I'd hate to see how bad 3 hours every week would look. If they want to try and get some good storylines going, they should,

1) Consider cutting back on the number of pay-per-views

or ,

2) At the rate that they've been wishing people well in all their future endeavors, keep cutting the payrole, do away with ECW, and go back to pre-invasion angle when Raw and Smackdown both furthered the same storylines and use the Superstars show as a place to show new talent with maybe upper midcard guys as headliners.

 

[brahma62]

No Raw really shouldn't go three hours. As people said earlier one solution could be to cut back on the number of pay-per-views. If i remember correctly the rest of the ppv schedule this year, every ppv from here on out is less than a month apart. I see how it's smart considering they make a ton of money from the revenue generated from ppv's, but it really doesn't give enough time to build feuds and such.

The three hour idea would be a little much. The WWE Superstars program might not even last that long in the first place, but we will see. The best parts about the wrestling program are pretty much the very beginning and the very end. Over a two hour span you can't really lose your attention too much because there is also some good parts at about an hour in. I don't see how WWE could keep everyones attention for the whole 3 hours without viewers tuning out. PLUS imagine how much more it would cost to do a 3 hour show.

 

[WunNightStan619]

Honestly the peoblem does not lie within the length of the show. Lord knows that's the LEAST of there problems. Besides, how long has Raw been a 2hr show and was extremely successful. Lack of time constraints is no exscuse for poor show quality, The problem is the atrocious writing and creative ideas. It's awful, they got hollywood writers tryna write a wrestling show. It's like having a baseball coach tryna coach football, it doesnt work. Look what happend when Michael Jordan started playing baseball. lmao

But nah i think that the WWE needs creative geniouses who know how to appleal to a wrestling audience. And eventho i wud LOVE to see them do away with that stupid ass PG rating bullshit, they really dont need to do that either. Werent they PG back in the late 80's and early 90's wit the hogan & warrior days? Then u had guys like Razor ramon, Diesel, Doink the Clown, Crush, and all these other character's with conflicting personalities that all made a good show. But in a nut shell, WWE needs new writers, a drastically improved creative team and they really just need to listen to the crowd more than shoving guys like CM Punk and John Cena down our throats...3hrs isent nessacary

 

[RicSpade]

The real problem that the WWE has is they post way to many segments to fill the gaps in time instead of solid wrestling. Really think about this for a moment, ECW might actually be the strong show they have right now because its the only show u can tune into and watch a strong 7-15 minute match that makes you go on the edge of your seat, for example the Battle Royal they had for the spot in the money in the bank was just incredible, and on Raw you have a short 4-6 minute match with John Cena facing whoever doing nothing but his trademark moves.

The last time you actually seen a real solid match was the 45 minute match Shawn Michaels did with John Cena on an episode of Raw. I mean where you put the best superstars out there and they put on a Pay Per View performance. That's where WWE gets it wrong is they want you to pay for the great performances but they lose their audience if they can't put something decent on the table from time to time. WWE Superstars technically will only help the WWE if the matches they put on in the 1 hour timeslot are not the usual T.V. matches and actually have great matches every 1-2 shows.

 

[klunderbunker]

Note: this was what I thought prior to the draft. I can't speak for how things will go now that the draft has come and gone.

I think the problem on Raw is simple: there are no characters for us to get emotional about. Looking back, every character that has been huge is someone we either loved completely or hated completely. Hogan-loved because the charisma he had was so mind blowing that we had never seen anything like it. Flair-how could you not hate this guy? A rich bastard that had it all and knew it. Austin-there's no one here that hasn't at one point or another wanted to beat the hell out of our boss. Austin's war against the establishment was a vent for our frustrations and it let us get out all of our inner rage vicariously through him.

Now, we have Cena, HHH and Orton as arguably the top three guys in the company. Let's break this down.

HHH-what is his character anyway? He's jsut a great wrestler that is the champion. Again, very much like Harley Race, just not as good either in the ring or in character. Race was just hated by everyone. HHH's constant turns and shades of gray don't only get on our nerves but it makes us unsure if he's cool or not.

Cena-same question as HHH: what is he? What is his character? Simply put, he's the good guy. What makes him the good guy? Nothing. He's just....good. That's not a character. He's just there and while he's great on the mic, we have no real reason to care about him and it's rapidly being exposed. there's no storyline for him ever other than he wants to be champion. That doesn't work.

Orton-this is by far the strongest of the bunch, but again he falls short. Despite having the mind blowing buildup for Mania, it fell flat on its face. Why did it do that you ask? to me, it fell apart the Raw before Mania. Orton's speech about why he did what he did was flat out horrible. He tried to make it sound like this grand reveal of everything he was doing, but there was nothing at all there we didn't know. It was like knowing the punchline of a great joke but still hearing the buildup. Ok, what was the point of that? I knew what was coming. At least he has somehting resembling a character if you're looking at him with broken glasses and squinting hard enough.

That's what I boil it down to: the lack of characters. No one cares about any of these people and there's not a single reason why we should. Every one of them are flat as hell and they're just "real people" at the end of the day. Why should I care about Cena's desire to be champion or HHH's mission to be the best ever? I don't and there's no real chance I'm going to given the current pace.

 

[shafe_41]

I still like my 3 hr. idea of Raw, just because Monday Night TV is not great so I need something else to watch. But everyone has made very valid points in why it's not a good idea.

I got some rep with the comment about how bad Nitro was when it turned to 3 hrs. and I totally forgot about Nitro going 3 hrs. While it might just be a coincidence, I don't think it was the extra hour that did it. WCW was going down the tube with 94% of the talent joining the nWo and crap like that.

Another reason and I've said before on other posts about Raw was the characters. We don't have any token characters that can suck in the whole crowd and have the whole crowd get behind. Triple H... doesn't count. Cena, it's obvious the whole crowd doesn't like him. But we don't have an Austin, a Rock, a Hogan, a Warrior... or hell even a Sting or Bret Hart. We just don't have that character right now. And like someone said... it's tough to get behind characters and write something memorable for characters that are constantly changing.

And finally another great thing brought up which has been said many tiimes and I would be a huge fan of... less PPVs. For characters and show quality, it would improve the product. But Vince's pockets won't be as fat. I mean even at 40 bucks a pop and only a crummy 200,000 buys for a B-rated PPV, still brings in 8 million. Then add ticket sales to the PPVs that sell out pretty much every time and merch at the event, probably another million. That's too much money for Vince to just take away. Don't take away a ton of PPVs...but I think 8 or 9 would be good. Keep the 4 originals and then throw in No Way Out, move Backlash ahead by about 2-3 weeks to beginning of May, keep One Night Stand mid-June, Night of Champions mid/late July. And then fill the void between SS and SS with Cyber Sunday. Those are 9 pretty solid PPVs. We don't need Armageddon, Great American Bash, Unforgiven and No Mercy. Give the superstars something to work for like back in the day to work your way on to a PPV was a big deal.

 

[klunderbunker]

3 hours of Raw wouldn't work. Nitro tried it and it failed miserably. The problem is simple: an extra hour means more tv to write, which means the writers who are already lazy will just throw out more pointless bullshit that insults our intelligence on a weekly basis. Do you really want to see another Santino character every week? Do you really want to see another 20 minutes of McMahon promos to set up some feud that no one is interested in? I can't imagine that I would or for the most part anyone would. Raw needs more wrestling and to cut about 5-10 minutes of promos. That would help a lot as well.

 

[Azrael Cain]

I think making Raw three hours would hurt the WWE in the long run, if not immediately. If the Creative Staff was bigger and more creative, then they may pull it off. But at the state the WWE is in, with only a handful of characters all crowding in the Main Event picture with no true solid under-card to "rely on," the three hour format would just be filled with more of the same old crap that the two hour version suffers from: Kiss Cam segments, other shitty segments and commercials.

I do believe, though, if the three hour format were to indeed happen, it might light a fire under creative and under Vince to hire more sensible writers. The extra hour could potentially kill or revive the show, again, depending on how they handle it.

I think, though, overall, Raw is fine with the two hours it has. It has always been two hours, and had no problems working out amazing during the Attitude Era, winning over the three hour Nitro week after week (Nitro and the fall of wCw is a separate discussion altogether, though).

Invest in your under-card. Do what you do best: sell wrestling. Engage. That's what happened in 1998, and even before 1998. Wrestling is entertainment, but it is not soap operas. When you have Freddy Prinze Jr working as a writer for the WWE, admit it, something's wrong...

 

[HBK-aholic]

The problem is simple: an extra hour means more tv to write, which means the writers who are already lazy will just throw out more pointless bullshit that insults our intelligence on a weekly basis.

KB hit the nail on the head here. I'm fine with Raw being 2 hours long, 3 hours is a bit much. Their just isn't enough talent in creative or in the ring in order to make this work. There'd be pointless matches and not much else.

Plus, I live in the UK. Raw isn't on until 1-2a.m., I wouldn't bother even attempting to watch it if it went on for 3 hours. It's on late enough as it is.