Two hours is considered the sweet spot for a wrestling show, but an argument can be made for WWE adding a third hour to SmackDown Live.
The risk of a third hour is that too much filler is added to the show to pad out the time, a problem Raw has encountered numerous times. That’s not the say there aren’t positives or extending the show, however.
A third hour prevents all of the top stars being crammed into smaller segments. SmackDown has done a good job of giving wrestlers a solid amount of time to build on their stories each week, but what will happen once a strong core of absentees rejoin the mix?
Just look at the names missing from this past week’s edition of SmackDown: Randy Orton, the WWE Champion was absent, as was Baron Corbin, Shinsuke Nakamura and Luke Harper.
Rusev and Lana are set to debut on Tuesday nights in the coming months, as are The New Day. John Cena will eventually return to the fold, also.
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Let’s rewind to Tuesday night. If the writers were suddenly forced to add a third hour, how could have it been achieved? Quite easily, actually, and it certainly wouldn’t have felt like filler.
Randy Orton could have addressed the crowd, talked about his House of Horrors match last Sunday night and confronted No. 1 contender Jinder Mahal. He could’ve gone one-on-one with Baron Corbin, who missed the show due to a storyline one-week suspension.
The tag team champions weren’t even on the show. A third hour would have allowed time for The Usos to build to their Backlash meeting with Breezango.
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Less is more with Shinsuke Nakamura as he slowly establishes himself on the main roster, but eventually he’ll take on a more full-time role on Tuesday nights. The same can be expected of a returning Rusev and Cena.
Extending the show would also allow for more singles feuds to develop in the Women’s division. Too often they are all jumbled together into Six-Pack Challengers or tag team matches.
The current storyline makes sense, and it’s lining up for Backlash showdown between “The Welcoming Committee” and the team of Naomi, Charlotte and Becky Lynch. But once this feud is over, the importance of singles rivalries between the Women’s division is important. A third hour would allow more time for this.
There are a number of pros and cons for adding a third hour. You only have to watch Raw with any regularity to see the problems it can present. An argument for SmackDown is that the current format isn’t broken, so don’t attempt to fix it. And that’s an understandable point.
Reworking 205 Live would also be a roadblock. It’s current slot is immediately following SmackDown. Maintaining the crowd beyond a three-hour show might be a stretch.
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For these reasons switching SmackDown to three hours remains a long shot, but it feels more likely than Raw going the other way.
It wouldn’t be a popular decision, but the blue show might finally have the roster depth to make it work.