WWE Raw moves to 3 hours
With WWE deciding to move their flagship show Monday Night Raw to a new three hour time slot on the USA Network, the online wrestling community has been buzzing at the prospect of an extra hour of action, and a new era of edgy and more creative story lines that none of us have seen since the Attitude Era. I can see the logic folks, I really can, Vince gets an extra hour on the air to put out more content that will speak to the old-school fans, and give them all something that they’ve been crying out for since Stone Cold hung up his boots. With the children gone to bed, happy in the knowledge that the baby faces of the company have won their 5 minute matches against the minnows of the industry who will never get the push that they deserve, the last hour of the show can now shake of the shackles of PG programming, and WWE can show the world that it still has a pair of balls!
However, I am truly sorry to inform all of you that this is just not going happen. There is no chance of it happening my friends, Vince McMahon does not think like this anymore. He last lost touch with the needs of the fan base that made his company what it is today, the smart wrestling fans who remember how good professional wrestling was and still can be if it is ran by competent people. Vince McMahon has a brilliant business mind and an unparalleled work ethic, but even with the best intentions in the world, he is not the man to lead the company anymore.
This extra hour will be devoted to one of two things; either the introduction of a cruiserweight division, or a time slot used to present pre-show or post-show coverage. But what will either of these things achieve? The cruiserweight division has been neglected for far too long, and that has been particularly disappointing seeing as many other companies realised the importance of the cruiserweight talent when it was too late (WCW for one). The idea of pre-show or post-show coverage is something which annoys me even more. Let me put it this way, if you were to have watched a shitty 0-0 draw in a football match, would you stay tuned for an hours discussion about the “action”? No you wouldn’t. It’s not like WWE are coming up with the best story lines or booking the best matches right now, if we’re being honest we spend more time astounded at the fact that we still tune in to this repetitive PG crap than we do digesting the garbage that Vince McMahon is sticking down our throats week-in week-out.
The WWE won’t go out of business anytime soon, there’s no competition! TNA is dying a death, but my God they have some talent that the WWE should be chasing for dear life. The problem is, even if WWE did sign someone like AJ Styles, they’d bury him and leave him to rot on the shelf. WWE Creative just wouldn’t know what to do with him, and Vince probably wouldn’t sanction a good idea that they approached him with.
Take off your rose-tinted glasses folks, things aren’t changing any time soon.
