I wonder if all the smart-asses who write for various other wrestling sites out there have put their stopwatches away yet. Y'know, the stopwatches, what some of these writers used to measure how much bell-to-bell wrestling there is on RAW each week. That was always my least favorite trope about my peers, or more accurately, the people whose writing habits I wanted to emulate least. I hate it when there is such a strict restriction on what shows should or should not contain if they need to be good. I've seen enthralling RAWs with barely any in-ring action, and I've seen absolutely putrid shows packed to the gills with matches.
But secretly, I always silently assented to the complaint that we didn't see enough wrestling on RAW though. Ever since I got back to wrestling in 2008, WWE has always had a good roster. They've always had enough time to have at least one match that went long. They had the cajones to let John Cena and Shawn Michaels go 60 minutes for crying out loud.
But another one of those smart-ass, hip-to-ape complaints has been that three hours is "too long" for a wrestling show. It's not that I reflexively disagree with that. There are some weeks where watching RAW is a chore, of course. But I've found that some weeks, when they have the formula down pat, well, they could run four hours and have it feel like a half-hour in time. Last week, WWE produced a show that was heavy on story, angling, and swerve, and it was fantastic. But those shows are diamonds in the rough, mainly because stasis is not a word one uses to describe the consistency in their output.
But the biggest reason why I feel the three-hour experiment has been a rousing success is because of why the n00bs with their stopwatches have had to let them collect dust. It used to be that RAW was the story show and Smackdown was the wrestling show. The roles haven't reversed; Smackdown still has plenty of action on Friday nights, where I'm told they like to fight. Main Event has picked up some slack that WWE didn't even know they had.
But it feels like every week, there's at least one match that attempts to say "Hey, this is the best match we're going to put on all year," even if the highest of the high in quality leaves such an impossibly high bar that it's impossible to imagine anything topping it. Then again, what's the consensus here? Some will say CM Punk vs. Undertaker set that bar at Mania. Others will point to various trios matches featuring any combination of The Shield vs. Kane, Daniel Bryan, and _________. Still others have Punk vs. Cena. Others point to Bryan vs. [open set]. It's been that kind of year for the company.
In essence, it shouldn't be all that surprising. WWE has never had a deeper or better roster. They have great veterans, "rookies" who are far more advanced than anyone they've had come in for them in the last decade. And they have time, the most precious commodity of them all. So when Chris Jericho and Alberto del Rio, two savvy veterans, get two segments sandwiching a commercial break to tell a story, then you'd better expect something the caliber befitting a pay-per-view main event. When an impossibly underrated Darren Young gets a showcase spot against Punk, one where he actually gets to come close to winning, then it's going to be a good night. And when Bryan gets to trade bombs with Randy Orton, a wrestler who is overrated only because he's not willing to bump, then that's the piece de resistance.
I mean, let's ruminate on this for a second. On a day when Jerry Lawler got to audibly mourn his mentor and maker Jackie Fargo on the air, Bryan and Orton opened and closed the show by paying a much richer tribute to him than any words could belly up to the bar. They were unrestrained in their anger, telling an impassioned story about how their uneasy alliance turned into this boiled over pot, all because the painted arrogant man in the establishment took the troll bait. On a haughty cloud, Orton sat, beckoning Bryan to fight him. Well, when you're about to call down the thunder, you had best be ready to take the hit, because Bryan wasn't fucking around.
And to his credit, when it came time to make Bryan look like a star, he fucking made Bryan look like a star. His MO in the past was that he didn't bump a whole lot, but for Bryan, he went through tables, got peppered with kicks, and let Bryan rub a kendo stick in his face. That fact means all the difference in the world, and it's what sets apart a real starmaking performance from the lip service that Orton paid in the ring to Christian in a series of matches when the latter took all the big bumps and was still expected to drive a compelling story with a hero that gave no fuck. Whether it was the fault of Orton or Creative, well, it was someone's fault.
But that's the one thing that I think the nerds with the stopwatches have always failed to realize. Time of wrestling on a show is never the thing that mattered. It's the wrestling that felt like it mattered that has always been most valuable. Looking at a goddamn minute/second agglomeration of actual grappling on this show might tell you that it was full of wrestling, but it wouldn't tell you whether it was good. That's why you don't pay attention to raw times. That's why you need context. Matches plus meaning is the reason why RAW is the "wrestling show" now. It's what I wanted from it all along, and that we're living in a fully realized vision of it just makes me absolutely happy to be a fan right now.
But secretly, I always silently assented to the complaint that we didn't see enough wrestling on RAW though. Ever since I got back to wrestling in 2008, WWE has always had a good roster. They've always had enough time to have at least one match that went long. They had the cajones to let John Cena and Shawn Michaels go 60 minutes for crying out loud.
But another one of those smart-ass, hip-to-ape complaints has been that three hours is "too long" for a wrestling show. It's not that I reflexively disagree with that. There are some weeks where watching RAW is a chore, of course. But I've found that some weeks, when they have the formula down pat, well, they could run four hours and have it feel like a half-hour in time. Last week, WWE produced a show that was heavy on story, angling, and swerve, and it was fantastic. But those shows are diamonds in the rough, mainly because stasis is not a word one uses to describe the consistency in their output.
But the biggest reason why I feel the three-hour experiment has been a rousing success is because of why the n00bs with their stopwatches have had to let them collect dust. It used to be that RAW was the story show and Smackdown was the wrestling show. The roles haven't reversed; Smackdown still has plenty of action on Friday nights, where I'm told they like to fight. Main Event has picked up some slack that WWE didn't even know they had.
But it feels like every week, there's at least one match that attempts to say "Hey, this is the best match we're going to put on all year," even if the highest of the high in quality leaves such an impossibly high bar that it's impossible to imagine anything topping it. Then again, what's the consensus here? Some will say CM Punk vs. Undertaker set that bar at Mania. Others will point to various trios matches featuring any combination of The Shield vs. Kane, Daniel Bryan, and _________. Still others have Punk vs. Cena. Others point to Bryan vs. [open set]. It's been that kind of year for the company.
In essence, it shouldn't be all that surprising. WWE has never had a deeper or better roster. They have great veterans, "rookies" who are far more advanced than anyone they've had come in for them in the last decade. And they have time, the most precious commodity of them all. So when Chris Jericho and Alberto del Rio, two savvy veterans, get two segments sandwiching a commercial break to tell a story, then you'd better expect something the caliber befitting a pay-per-view main event. When an impossibly underrated Darren Young gets a showcase spot against Punk, one where he actually gets to come close to winning, then it's going to be a good night. And when Bryan gets to trade bombs with Randy Orton, a wrestler who is overrated only because he's not willing to bump, then that's the piece de resistance.
I mean, let's ruminate on this for a second. On a day when Jerry Lawler got to audibly mourn his mentor and maker Jackie Fargo on the air, Bryan and Orton opened and closed the show by paying a much richer tribute to him than any words could belly up to the bar. They were unrestrained in their anger, telling an impassioned story about how their uneasy alliance turned into this boiled over pot, all because the painted arrogant man in the establishment took the troll bait. On a haughty cloud, Orton sat, beckoning Bryan to fight him. Well, when you're about to call down the thunder, you had best be ready to take the hit, because Bryan wasn't fucking around.
And to his credit, when it came time to make Bryan look like a star, he fucking made Bryan look like a star. His MO in the past was that he didn't bump a whole lot, but for Bryan, he went through tables, got peppered with kicks, and let Bryan rub a kendo stick in his face. That fact means all the difference in the world, and it's what sets apart a real starmaking performance from the lip service that Orton paid in the ring to Christian in a series of matches when the latter took all the big bumps and was still expected to drive a compelling story with a hero that gave no fuck. Whether it was the fault of Orton or Creative, well, it was someone's fault.
But that's the one thing that I think the nerds with the stopwatches have always failed to realize. Time of wrestling on a show is never the thing that mattered. It's the wrestling that felt like it mattered that has always been most valuable. Looking at a goddamn minute/second agglomeration of actual grappling on this show might tell you that it was full of wrestling, but it wouldn't tell you whether it was good. That's why you don't pay attention to raw times. That's why you need context. Matches plus meaning is the reason why RAW is the "wrestling show" now. It's what I wanted from it all along, and that we're living in a fully realized vision of it just makes me absolutely happy to be a fan right now.
