An unwelcome trend?

[theironyuppie]

Something that's been noticeable in recent months is that even if lower and mid-card women's matches often get little TV time, the divisions' top women still generally get reasonable time for their matches. Until this week, which had a Becky/Doudrop vs Bianca/Liv tag match go three minutes and then Charlotte/Naomi on Smackdown go not even two and a half. It could just be an off week, but it's definitely something I hope doesn't become more common going forward.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Well, you've put it out there, so what'll happen now is that we'll have the usual chat about Prichard and Laurinitis being sexist pigs and nothing changes.

[Woo]

Yeah this is normal for Johnny Ace.

[Bo Rida]

Admittedly I don't watch these days but I don't think it's unusual for WWE to have TV shows where every match except the main event is under 5 mins. I think it's their prominence and time on premium live events that are the trend to pay attention to.


Bryan had an article recently and say in wwe "The TV matches are usually around three minutes but very rarely much longer than 10."

www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/pro-tips/aews-bryan-danielson-wrestling-tips-to-stay-fit-at-40/

[Mozenrath]

It's been pretty shitty. I think that sometimes, short matches are appropriate, but they've been abusing it lately, especially with the women.

[Deleted]

The length of that tag team match was just unforgivable. Also, the bullshit finish did not help at all. 

Speaking of bullshit finishes: Aliyah getting bitched out to  f***ing Natalya and Naomi just taking it from Sonya was not any better - it was the worst SD! I've seen in ages.

I really do hope things change. I'm done with only horsewomen getting the full length matches...

[polarbearpete]

It’s really the way they book a lot of midcard TV matches, man or woman, especially on Smackdown. Sheamus-Ricochet was 3 minutes, the Viking Raiders was 2 minutes, Kofi-Madcap was 7 minutes.

But then when the women are in a featured spot, like when they main evented Raw last week, Doudrop, Liv and Bianca got 15 minutes.

[Bad Moon]

I feel like with someone actually creative at the helm you could defend this decision and even spin it into a positive. At the highest level of competition, moves hit harder, mistakes cost more, less energy is wasted, wrestlers don't take time to feel each other out because they can already read each other like a book. If you're watching a big time superstar wrestle, you better don't blink or you might miss the whole thing!
Of course it's all a bullshit justification for the tight time constraints but if they bothered to give any kind of effort it would be less of a problem.

[mistery]

The optics are really bad in regards to the women, because look at NXT 2.0, so it's not hard to connect the dots and realize that they (Johnny and Bruce) want to go back to the days of failed athletes and models. And they are trying to implement that vision already in NXT, to incredibly mixed results at best.

And guess who has the book right now? Bruce. And guess who has lost a lot of power behind the scenes? Triple H and Stephanie.

[Tiiulicious]

Nothing about WWE's women's division seems must-see. Not even Bianca and the Horsewomen. The match quality is fine, if they're given a chance but there's this giant apathy permeating through. Sonya/Naomi has been going on forever and makes no sense at all. It's a storyline without much story. Is anyone deeply attached to whatever Natalya/Aaliyah are doing? Who could possibly care? I can't even remember who're the women's tag team champions are. It's a useless, pointless belt that is better served as a paperweight. The division has really good workers but it's ice cold.

There's a lot of performative outrage about AEW's women's division and I hope people will start ranking WWE on a similar curve. Two women's matches that last a combined five minutes isn't something to hang your hat on. I would rather take one longer women's match with an actual story!

[asuka007]

The women’s booking has been bad across all three shows for many months now.

You heard rumors that many of the women were not exactly thrilled at the idea of Pritchard and Johnny Ace coming back. And if true, not hard to see why.

Also the fact that SD has to waste SO MUCH time on Roman doing, not much honestly, does not help.

[Mozenrath]

Jan 22, 2022 10:27:09 GMT -5 asuka007 said:

The women’s booking has been bad across all three shows for many months now.

You heard rumors that many of the women were not exactly thrilled at the idea of Pritchard and Johnny Ace coming back. And if true, not hard to see why.

Also the fact that SD has to waste SO MUCH time on Roman doing, not much honestly, does not help.

I imagine the situation will improve somewhat whenever Bayley is back, in part since she's just frankly the best Horsewoman at character work by like three times over, but even if she and Asuka came back like tomorrow, it'd still only do so much to fix anything. They'd still have some major depth issues and really nonsensical writing, plus the aforementioned short as hell matches.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

I feel like most matches in WWE these days are on the shorter side. RAW might get a match that goes long outside the main event simply because it's three hours and it's usually a men's match but they also just have more men who are used to working longer matches. So I don't think it's too targeted towards the women but the ultimate result is less high level women's TV matches than we've had the past few years and the gap between WWE and other American companies when it comes to weekly women's wrestling has decreased.

[mistery]

Jan 22, 2022 14:21:32 GMT -5 "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik said:

I feel like most matches in WWE these days are on the shorter side. RAW might get a match that goes long outside the main event simply because it's three hours and it's usually a men's match but they also just have more men who are used to working longer matches. So I don't think it's too targeted towards the women but the ultimate result is less high level women's TV matches than we've had the past few years and the gap between WWE and other American companies when it comes to weekly women's wrestling has decreased.

I mean that's true, but then you have really ugly outliers like the Queen's Crown tournament which got virtually no time at all. And the women are constantly the ones getting the short end of the stick when things have to be cut short. And while I'm sure the men get their stuff cut short, I don't think it's a reach to say women's stuff is the first thing on the chopping block, when in reality WWE should be looking at cutting out like 90% of the recaps of segments that just aired like 30 minutes ago. Or in the case of Smackdown, cutting Roman's entrance down from like 5-10 minutes to like 2-3 minutes.

It's why I think the "Women's Revolution" is pretty much dead, and at the rate WWE is regressing, it won't be long until WWE ends up being the worst place to work at for a women's wrestler looking to hone their craft. Especially once the pandemic loosens up and STARDOM starts expanding its reach to be more globally oriented.

[Deleted]

Jan 22, 2022 4:22:38 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

It's been pretty shitty. I think that sometimes, short matches are appropriate, but they've been abusing it lately, especially with the women.

It feels like matches in WWE are either way too long or too short.

[Deleted]

IMO it is not the length of the matches that are the problem it is the fact all of these matches are pretty damn hollow no real story , little to no character work and when there is it is abysmal , continuity non exsistent.