WWE: Too Much TV is Hurting the Product
By Carl Gac
Has WWE made put themselves in the difficult position of giving the fans too much TV, to the detriment of the overall product?
Having been a fan of professional wrestling for over 25 years, I’m currently at the point where I feel like if I didn’t watch WWE television for a year or so, I don’t think I’d miss it. I didn’t think that would be possible, but with everything that WWE produces on a weekly, and monthly, basis I find myself pushed into a corner where I can’t be bothered to watch Raw and SmackDown every week.
Throw in the plethora of pay-per-views, now with some months carrying two events, and its got to the point where WWE isn’t something that’s “must watch” any more. It’s more of “watch if you can fit it in”, which isn’t how it should be. If you want to see a possible reason why TV ratings are down, you could point to the fact that not a lot of what WWE produces is of a massively high quality.
That’s not me saying that the men and women who step into the ring every night are poor at what they do, it’s me saying that a lot of the time the actual wrestlers look like they have their hands tied behind their backs. I know exactly how good men like Neville can be in the ring, because in NXT he showed how amazing he is between the ropes, but even with three hours of Raw every week he rarely gets the chance to shine in the ring.
When you look at the weekly, in-ring output from WWE, it’s an impressive amount. Three hours of Monday Night Raw. Two hours of SmackDown Live. One hour of NXT. One hour of Main Event. That’s seven hours of new television every week. If it’s a pay-per-view week that can add anywhere from two and a half to four plus hours of extra content. You don’t need me to tell you that is a lot of stuff to watch.
Even if you just watch Raw and SmackDown that’s five hours of content to fit in. Since the Brand Split happened both shows have their own unique rosters. If you want to keep up with everything you would expect fans to watch everything you put out. It’s more of a scenario now where people are choosing one show over the other, with many highlighting SmackDown as the better of the two shows.
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WWE has carried out the Brand Split, and it seems to have made more problems for them than it has solved. Now we can see the glaring problems within the company, most notably the fact that Raw seems to achieve less every week than SmackDown does, despite the fact that they have an hour longer. I often find myself thinking more has been achieved during the weekly hour-long episode of NXT, than during the three hours of Raw on the exact same week.
If WWE wants fans to buy into every bit of TV they produce, they need to make everything unmissable. Right now I find myself, and I know other fans that feel the same, more likely to seek out an indy show to watch. Knowing that I can watch a show by a company like Progress Wrestling that is three hours long, but feels like it’s over in less than a third of that time, makes me more likely to invest my time and money in that product. The fact that 99.9% of what happens on that show actually makes sense, and is important to the overall picture, gives me even more reason to watch it.
When it feels like a chore to watch something, that’s when you are most likely to turn off and watch something else. If WWE wants to give the fans an impelling product, that leaves them wanting more, they need to look at the old “less is more” ideology.
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Right now we are spoiled with a plethora of professional wrestling viewing. In the past, WWE would have been right at the top of the list, but now it is rapidly falling down the list. With so much to watch, and little reason to stick with something that isn’t ticking all the boxes, WWE needs to make changes rather than keep on grinding fans down with television that isn’t compulsive viewing.