Which is worse: pre-show or "death spot"?

[bmfjules]

Obviously, pay day wise, I assume you get a little more money, at least in the old days, being on the main show, but from a booking standpoint, as a wrestler, which would be the harder "burden" to overcome?

Death spot, for those unfamiliar, is usually the match that goes on before the main event to allow people a chance to buy some merch or go to the bathroom before the main event.

[wankah]

I dunno, death spot seems quite an easy gig really. Pre-show on the other hand should be setting the tone for the evening.

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

As someone who was at Wrestlemania 18, the idea of the death spot/cool-down spot is stupid because that means that the main event has to work that much harder to heat the audience back up, and there's no guarantee that the main event can get the fans excited as much as an earlier match might have.

This was the case at WM 18, because 2002 Triple H sucked, and Rock vs. Hogan was nuts for the sheer scope of it all. Whereas if Triple H vs. Jericho went out right after Rock vs. Hogan, I would have been more excited for it because I still would have been amped up from the previous match (but not as excited for it as I was for Rock vs. Hogan).

[Deleted]

Death spot usually goes to filler matches featuring talent people don't care for.

The Playboy Pillow Fight at 22 is the ultimate example.

Having guys people care for on the preshow sucks more.

[froggyfrog]

Preshow is worse because they load your match with commercials and no one remembers it as soon as it's over

[Slanted and Enchanted]

Pre-show is worse. Especially when the WWE drills it into your ear about how important the real card is and "THERES STILL TIME TO SUBSCRIBE but we'll give you complimentary breadsticks while you decide your order" while the countdown ticker winds down during your match. Yeah, pre-show is way worse.

[Shark]

I think anything that has "death" in it is worse. At least with the pre show match, the fans can still be into it and you can have a good match. The death spot match has the fans so uninterested. If it was me, I'd rather be on the pre show with a match designed to get the fans hyped than a match designed to give the fans a break.

[RIHT]

The thing is, before the new brand split, we had maybe 3-4 title matches and 3-4 grudge matches at WM. Now we have twice as many title matches, and potentially twice as many rivalries between the split brands. I feel WWE should have just had one set of titles, for maybe at least the women's division or tag division. It feels inevitable that some matches get pushed to the pre-show. I don't like it, but it feels like WWE is in a tough position.

[This Player Hating Mothman]

Pre-show is worse from a standpoint of actually having to overcome it, I think. The death spot is meant for either throwaway garbage, or something short and harmless. Tonight's penultimate match was just a quick paced, fun little thing meant to lighten the crowd up a bit. The pre-show, on the other hand, carries a big stigma of not being good enough for the main card, since they're spending half of it shilling the network and cutting commercials into everything. They never get that much time because they need to use the pre-show for panels and promo packages, and I doubt they're allowed to really have a very good match out of it. I imagine that if Corbin/Ambrose and especially Neville/Aries were main card, they'd be allowed to have significantly better matches, and with neither feud over I expect we'll learn that that's exactly the case in a month's time when both rematches proves better than the pre-show Mania matches.

[Urfarkendarf]

Pre-show. Think about if you ever re-watch a PPV or if you watch a PPV late. Do you sit through the pre-show? I never have. I only watch the pre-show live.

Main card regardless of death spot or not is the goal.