How much of a weekly show do you think should be matches?

[Lizuka #BLM]

On average of course, I do think everyone would agree there's room for some degree of adjustability on an individual episode basis. Naturally inspired by the under a half hour of wrestling on Raw this week.

Way I look at it is the average episode of Raw is, discounting commercials, roughly 132 minutes in length, or two hours and twelve minutes. Of that I think roundabout half of that is fine; you definitely should be getting at least a couple of good, long matches on the show each week, it has so much time to spare and such a great roster there's really no reason not to, but I also don't want shows that are just match-match-match-match with nothing in between to break them up or add context to anything. The ratio should be higher on PPVs (and it usually isn't) but about an hour of wrestling discounting commercials on Raw a week I think is a pretty acceptable ratio.

As for SmackDown, maybe about 40, 50 minutes. It doesn't have the same amount of time to spare, roughly having only 88 minutes to fill, but the same general viewpoint applies in regards to it. You can go a lot heavier than that kind of ratio with it like AEW often does I guess but after awhile that kind of format can be kind of hard to get invested in if you're invested in character stuff as well.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Like half of it on average. Depending on the promo or segment and how much you need to establish within them, you should realistically have a good balance where half the show is wrestling at the very least, and you can intermingle segments and in ring promos throughout that could also lead to things like brawls and attacks that give the fans plenty of action even if it isn't a match

Some shows can get away with being more promo heavy, but when you're a three hour show and you have under a half hour of wrestling? It's extremely lopsided and as the live crowd showed and was reported, they did not appreciate it, and were absolutely deflated by the end when their main event was a fakeout. It just doesn't look good.

I still think the worst example ever is the TNA show where they went an hour straight without ANY wrestling at all, but this RAW is definitely gonna be up there in terms of really piss poor time management and structure.

[Lizuka #BLM]

Apr 5, 2023 0:51:56 GMT -5 Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] said:

Like half of it on average. Depending on the promo or segment and how much you need to establish within them, you should realistically have a good balance where half the show is wrestling at the very least, and you can intermingle segments and in ring promos throughout that could also lead to things like brawls and attacks that give the fans plenty of action even if it isn't a match

Some shows can get away with being more promo heavy, but when you're a three hour show and you have under a half hour of wrestling? It's extremely lopsided and as the live crowd showed and was reported, they did not appreciate it, and were absolutely deflated by the end when their main event was a fakeout. It just doesn't look good.

I still think the worst example ever is the TNA show where they went an hour straight without ANY wrestling at all, but this RAW is definitely gonna be up there in terms of really piss poor time management and structure.

Best part of that TNA thing is that when they DID have a match, it consisted of Tara just immediately lying down and letting Madison pin her for the Knockouts title.

[Mozenrath]

My feeling is it should be about 3/5ths in most situations, but that exceptions can exist, like particularly hot angles, or if the intention is to put out some exceptional matches that need a good amount of time, or tournaments, etc.

[Deleted]

It really depends.

Because the lack of matches isn't so much the biggest issue it is what the show is filled with in those downtimes and usually it is endless f***ing recaps and with pooping girl commercials.

If they were to fill those downtimes with actual meaningful good story and character development IMO there would not be so much of an issue.

I take LU's structure as it was a singular hour and more often than not every single episode even if the matches were not up to par that particular week , you always came out of that hour with stories and characters progressed that intrigued enough for the audience to return the next week.

I would fill each hour with 3-4 matches even just most of them being sprints of 5-7min(sans entrance) and heavy story and character progression in between and not just for the percieved big stars.

[hbkid718]

I am in the minority of liking wrestling for wrestling and not the storylines & entertainment, so the more wrestling the better. But I rather have several long matches that go several segments than squash matches that last 3 minutes or less. That's why I liked Raw because of the matches, unlike most people this week.

[Chiral]

If an episode is gonna be wrestling light, then it NEEDS to be story heavy and not in a "people talk and nothing happens" kind of way like the plots have to majorly move forward.