WWE Smackdown: Moving to Three Hours Would Be a Mistake

Image Courtesy of the Official WWE Universe Facebook Page

If you have been enjoying WWE programming as of late, you may want to prepare for even more. At the moment, Vince McMahon has eight hours of wrestling television devoted to WWE. Raw is three hours, Superstars and Main Event each claim one hour, NXT is one hour and Smackdown is two hours (for now).

Rumors are swirling that WWE wants to make Smackdown relevant again. To be honest, that hasn’t happened since Edge retired, and the Undertaker only worked the WrestleMania season.

However, you can never guess with McMahon still running the show.

Partial Source: Pwinsider.com:

“WWE reportedly wants to get the SmackDown show up to par with Monday Night RAW. The current talk is to put more focus on the show, and there is even talk of expanding SmackDown to three hours in order to feature more stories.

The company’s deal with SyFy is expiring shortly, and it is expected that they will re-sign and keep SyFy SmackDown’s home. – E-Wrestling News“

The only way this is possible is to split the brands once again. If that is not a possibility, there will be no way the creative team will be able to write nine hours worth of television a week. NXT is simple, because it is taped once every four weeks. However, the other shows are not; they are weekly programs that need weekly attention. If the split were to happen, WWE would go back to having two writing teams devoted to each program. Currently, it is a whole bunched mess happening at one time with the creative squad.

Sometimes on Raw, you can tell the three-hour time period drags on, thus the pointless segments/matches happening every once and a while.

I mean seriously, who wants to see the Great Khali wrestle with Natalya and Hornswoggle? Liars are the ones who enjoy that segment. Well, Michael Cole must, because he seems so eager to set up his patented chop to the skull that does absolutely no damage to the opponent. Clearly that is one of the worst finishers in history.

Regardless of the ranting, my points remain clear that Smackdown can not go three hours without a brand split. It would be too much for the writing team, and the product would show that.

Jon Fisher is a writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on twitter @JonFisher_EWN, like him on Facebook and follow him on Google+.

MarcMattaliano

Ohhhh, it absolutely would be bad. Raw is a live show…so while it does drag in some spots, and is a lot to ask viewers to commit to, at least it’s a live program. There’s the app to watch, tweeting to do…and the past couple months, the storytelling has actually been really well done. They’ve been doing more with developing an ongoing story in little bits throughout a single episode, which is fantastic. I remember them doing that back in the day when Raw was only ONE HOUR!

However…Smackdown isn’t live, and while I’d rather it be live, I’m fine with it being taped, especially if they want it to be a sort of “learning curve” for newbies, where they can kind of edit out a botch or two here and there. Raw has always been the flagship show, and always should be. Smackdown’s a great side dish for the week, though. Anything that happened live on Monday Night Raw, that fans really reacted to or tweeted about or went nuts online speculating about, can be developed or not the very next night at the Smackdown taping.

Making it 3 hours is absolutely not necessary. Like I said, I like that Raw is 3 hours, and unlike when Nitro went 3 hours, WWE actually seems to be using that time wisely. Aside from the awful moments when Khali is on TV…and I read that Santino is going to be back this month perhaps maybe…that’s gonna suck…but other than that, the bigger more talented stars are getting time, then developed further where needed on Smackdown.

This is the perfect formula. They shouldn’t mess with it.