KB’s Review: I’m Afraid You’re Just Too Darn Long

In case you somehow haven’t heard, this Sunday is “Survivor Series 2016”, which is something involving fantasy warfare. The card is stacked (albeit with only six matches) and it has the potential to be one of the biggest shows in a long time. However, I’m not that excited about it for one reason: it’s another four hour pay per view, which has to be one of the dumbest ideas WWE has come up with in recent memory. Today we’re going to look at the obvious: four hour shows aren’t a good idea.

Let’s get the biggest problem out of the way: there’s too much content. Assuming the current pattern holds as is, a Big Four pay per view weekend and the ensuing TV is going to be the following:

NXT Takeover – Two hour show (ignoring pre-show)
Pay Per View – Four hour show, hour pre-show
“Monday Night Raw” – Three hours (ignoring pre-show and overrun)
“Smackdown Live” – Two hours (ignoring pre-show, “205 Live” and “Talking Smack”)

That’s also excluding “NXT” TV. In the span of four days, you’re looking at twelve hours in four days. People complain about “Monday Night Raw” being three hours a week and now we’re being asked to pay attention to that for four days in a row. At some point, people are just going to get tired of watching all this content so they won’t watch any of it instead of picking and choosing.

 

It’s also further burning out an already spent writing staff. I don’t think I’m stretching when I say “Monday Night Raw” is often strapped for ideas. The big stories range from boring to repetitive to uninteresting and now these same stories are supposed to be stretched out to fill another hour on pay per view? The solution to the writers being overworked is to have them work even more? Eh I’m sure the solution is to just have Stephanie McMahon on TV more, preferably being all adorable one week and then being the big boss the next with no particular rhyme or reason for the change.

There’s also the major issue of diminishing returns. If you’re a subscriber to the WWE Network, you have legal access to one of the biggest libraries of professional wrestling in the world. There’s more content on that thing than could realistically be finished in months with more material being added every single day. With all that at your fingertips though, the solution is to add even more time to the pay per views? I highly doubt that with everything being offered, a single extra hour four times a year is going to be the tipping point that makes you want to buy the Network, or any regular pay per view for that matter.

 

Ignoring the outside of the show, let’s consider the shows themselves. Obviously an extra hour of pay per view means an extra hour of content that needs to be produced. Unfortunately, this often means a lot of extra unnecessary stuff being put on the show. The best example of this would be “Summerslam 2016”. Let’s take a look at a few specific matches.

This show included a two hour pre-show which featured three matches:

A twelve man tag (ran about fifteen minutes)
Sami Zayn/Neville vs. Dudley Boyz (ran about eight minutes)
Cesaro vs. Sheamus (ran about fourteen minutes)

Of those three matches, two of them were added to the card less than a week before the show with the regular tag match being announced the Friday before. In other words, neither of them really served a purpose other than filling in time. If there’s no reason for the match to be existing other than filling in time, how important or entertaining do you really think they’re going to be?

 

That brings us to the main card, which featured nine matches. I won’t list all of them, but keep in mind that there was also supposed to be a US Title match which was replaced by an angle instead of an actual match. Now there might be other reasons, but do you think there’s a chance that it might have been cut due to time constraints? The show already ran four hours and three minutes and had a featured match cut out. So how did we get to that four hour run time?

Well, included in that four hours was an Intercontinental Title match that took less than six minutes, a Tag Team Title match that didn’t break ten minutes and a sub-twelve minute main event. All of those are factoring out entrances, post match issues and recap videos. We’re to the point where a pre-show getting two hours is more important than giving the extra time to a pair of title matches, the main event of the second biggest show of the year and the US Title match and the show STILL ran long.

Stop and think about that for a second. A twelve man tag which was thrown together less than a week before the show was given more time than two title matches and the main event. For what? The sake of padding out the show? I know it’s kind of unfair but either cut the twelve man tag down or get rid of it. Swap the Intercontinental Title match onto the pre-show and give it the extra time. It frees up a little time on the main card and keeps you from breaking into a seventh hour. In other words, IT MAKES SENSE AND DOES SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE IMPORTANT!

Oh and how was “Summerslam 2016” remembered? Do you remember much about it aside from a great John Cena vs. AJ Styles match or the ending feeling really abrupt? There’s not a lot worth bringing up on the show because it’s so crammed full of stuff that nothing has the chance to stick out. A very similar thing happened at this year’s “Wrestlemania XXXII” and I’d put a pretty strong bet on the idea that it happens at “Survivor Series 2016” and at “Royal Rumble 2017”, which will likely be an extended show as well.

I get the idea of being more excited about more wrestling but it really doesn’t make sense for me. These extended shows don’t add enough benefits to balance out all of the bad things that go along with them. All I see with them is a main card being bloated for the sake of adding in more material and WAY too much content over the span of a few days. If the wrestling isn’t really great or memorable, is there really a need to have the shows be longer in the first place? I certainly can’t see a reason but that’s where things seem to be going, logic and benefits aside.

Remember to check out my website at kbwrestlingreviews.com, follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book, KB’s Complete 2014 Raw and Smackdown Reviews Part I at Amazon for just $3.99 at:

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