The Problem Hasn't Been the Three-Hour Length

Three hours means more of this!
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Last week, Twitter and the blogosphere was sent into a FRENZY when the listing for RAW tonight was only two hours on their Comcast/Xfinity, starting at 9 PM EDT with reruns of CSI preceding. Some were rejoicing like their favorite team just won the Super Bowl or they just won $50 on an instant lotto scratch off ticket. I don't know whether it was vindication for all the kvetching they were doing before the move to three hours, whether they were looking at ratings and doing their best Nelson Muntz "Ha ha," or were just looking for a convenient excuse to blame shows they weren't enjoying. To their dismay, it was revealed that it was a mistake on Xfinity's part, and that RAW would be three hours this week.

I don't see that as much of a problem. If you ask me, there have been more good RAWs than bad RAWs in the three hour format, and the bad ones were not due to the length or complications from what the length of the show might have on it. Let's get it out of the way first; it's really hard to get through a three-hour telecast of anything without feeling weary. Sports can't go at full intensity for the entire tilt. Three-hour movies can be good even with having some stretches that drag. It would be one thing if WWE had no idea on how to fill out three-plus hours of programming.

However, I've found that three hour shows have for the most part flowed better than the two hour ones did. The reason? Longer wrestling matches and more of them. The popular meme among the dirtsheets and other wrestling sites has been counting the time of wrestling on each show. They've put the stopwatches away because there has been so much grappling action going on. There have been long tag matches, three ways, singles matches, title matches, four way United States Title matches... hell, they've even given women more than 30 seconds to tell a story.

Any of the problems that they have had have been systemic from when the show was two hours. Things like poor continuity, illogical storytelling, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and recap spam have been there before the expansion to three hours and will be there until there's change in the front office and creative team.

It's no real surprise that a wrestling show is really good when it has a lot of wrestling on it, especially when that wrestling is good. When you trot out wrestlers the caliber of Damien Sandow, Antonio Cesaro, CM Punk, Sheamus, The Big Show, Tyson Kidd, Duke of York Tensai, Dolph Ziggler, John Cena, and especially Daniel Bryan, you're going to get good matches more than you get bad ones. If/when the show is going to go back to two hours, yeah, we'll get a few of those matches a month, but there will invariably be those shows where there'll be next to no wrestling with all the recaps and stupid bullshit soap opera segment remaining in.

But when there's a mandate of three hours to fill? Yeah, you could a LOT worse than having a bunch of wrestling matches. That's why the three hour RAW has been welcome for me, an aficionado of the actual wrestling match. It's amazing how much a great contest in the ring can soothe the sting from having to sit through Vickie Guerrero presenting even more "evidence" against John Cena having consensual relations with AJ Lee or Triple H shouting in gruff, heightened tones about "THIS BUSINESS."