A favorite tool of wrestling journalists everywhere is to track the actual amount of wrestling time on any given wrestling show, especially ones notorious for being skit-heavy. The running meme is that ECW has more wrestling time in an hour of programming than TNA Impact has in two. Lately though, RAW has been under the same scrutiny. The WWE's flagship brand show has vacillated over the years with the amount of wrestling it has on the show. Even this year, it has run hot and cold. While RAW has had some MOTY candidates (including an excellent Cena/Punk match during the most recent three hour show), it's also had stupid shitty skits like the Osbournes America's Got Talent Ripoff thing (the only good coming out of it being Chri Masters' new boob-shaking gimmick), multiple DX skits that are unfunny more often than not and of course the worst feud of the last two years, Chavo Guerrero vs. Hornswoggle.
What is it about television that makes the bigwigs at both TNA and the WWE think that people don't want to see wrestling on it? No matter how much the WWE wants to expunge the word "wrestling" from its vocabulary, it's the cornerstone of the company. "Entertainment" is only a euphemism that allows them to attempt escaping the watchful eye of state athletic commissions. It's vexing to see a show like the one last night where the best match was a halfway decent tilt between the Miz and Mark Henry (two workers who could do much better with each other than what they gave us last night) and the main event was a lamely-premised interview segment that turned out a little better than what it promised. Still, even if it was better than advertised, it's embarrassing to close out a wrestling show with something other than a wrestling match, or at the very least aftermath from a wrestling match.
But was the show last night horrible because it didn't have a lot of wrestling, or was it that everything they gave us in lieu of the wrestling was pretty garbage? Well, you'd have to ask if they had a show that had very little wrestling on it but was still entertaining, and they did. The Rowdy Roddy Piper RAW at MSG got some praise from me, but it only had 22 minutes of actual wrestling on it. Of course, it helped that the three most memorable non-match segments were all pretty awesome - Piper chewing scenery with Vince McMahon, Randy Orton and Kofi Kingston brawling around the arena and Sheamus kicking Jerry Lawler's head off his shoulders. Also, the little wrestling they did have was pretty decent. The opening tilt between Miz and MVP and the main event triple threat tag match were good TV matches.
But that's the rub, you have to consistently entertaining with the little wrestling you offer and hit home runs with the out-of-match stuff. The MSG RAW had a decidedly old school feel to it, and surprise surprise, it felt organic and awesome despite the lack of wrestling, which was good in the limited amounts that were there. Last night's RAW focused mainly on lame, SNL-reject comedy with flat wrestling, and it showed.
So what's the moral of the story? Well, the WWE would be wise to mask the deficiencies with the out-of-match stuff by having better quality matches that go a bit longer on free TV. If that means having tag matches out the wazoo, then so be it.
As for TNA? Well... well, yeah, they should pray that Hulk Hogan isn't talking out his ass when he talks about changing the environment drastically.
