The State of Thursday Night Wrestling

Thursday night used to be a major theatre of battle in the Monday Night Wars. The WWF and WCW used to have their "B" shows on Thursday nights in a time when the "B" show was almost as much a main attraction as the big show they ran on Monday nights. The WWF lodged a major victory when they forced WCW's Thunder onto Wednesdays with the creation of Smackdown. Then, the CW moved Smackdown to Friday nights in the last few years.

However, that was far from the end of wrestling for the second to last day of the workweek. TNA decided that it would air its flagship television show, Impact, on Thursday nights. The WWE has also reentered the field recently with its relaunching of the Superstars franchise. Each company has left a mark on Thursday night, but it's not necessarily a good one.

In one corner, we have Impact, where the running gag is counting how many minutes of wrestling there are on the program. The problems of TNA have been documented here, and we all know what the fix is. The problem is that there are no fewer than three egomaniacal idiots at the helm there who don't know the problem is right in front of them.

And granted, 25 minutes of wrestling is probably 5 to 10 minutes fewer than what you'd find on one of the WWE's flagship programs. However, with the WWE, you don't need to count the minutes because you're at least going to be getting quality for the most part (until you get to the finish, that is). It doesn't feel like 30 minutes. It feels like you're watching a wrestling show, not some convoluted TV drama that tangentially is about wrestling.

In the other, it's Superstars, which has a very cobbled-together feeling to it. It's like they just wanted to have more market exposure, more time on TV because they could, another outlet to let everyone know what happened on RAW the other night. The wrestling is good most of the time at least, but the whole program just feels disjointed. Each brand has its own commentators call the matches exclusive to it. One of the selling points was that this is the one show where the brand split didn't matter, and we could see inter-brand exhibition matches so to speak, but for now, it's just been plain-jane intrabrand matches for the most part. It just feels like we're getting the outtakes from all three brand shows.

In order for Superstars to really take hold, the WWE has to take the opportunity to make it special. Let's face it, WGN isn't really the widest-released network out there. The WWE has to create a buzz that will get wrestling fans not only talking, but demanding that their carriers pick WGN up. I'm not just talking about match quality either. It's already there for the most part. They need to give the show its own identity. They need to give it announcers, clean production and maybe even its own exclusive interview segment. Making it a recap show doesn't do anything for it, especially since it's head to head with the promotion that wants so badly to be competition. The WWE has the chance to really shame TNA and show it how it's done. Why they wouldn't do that is beyond me.

So, that begs the question - where has Thursday night wrestling gone?

Truth be told, Thunder was never really critically acclaimed. Even when Nitro was pulling huge numbers and getting raves, Thunder always felt like an afterthought. Smackdown, however, has had stretches where it was must-see TV, especially in the Paul Heyman-booked "Smackdown Six" era, where Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Edge and Eddie and Chavo Guerrero put on a spectacle every week.

So while Monday and Tuesday remain nights where most wrestling fans can't wait to tune in, Thursday night, once a hotbed, is now relegated to nearly forgotten status, where a second rate fed's flagship competes with the big dog's "D" show.

Quite the far way to fall for a night that was once an important one in the scheme of the business.