When Wrestling Is Just Too Much
- Thomas Hall
- 6 minutes ago
- 5 min read
It’s the summer and we are around halfway through the year. As usual, wrestling has had its share of ups and downs as some things have gone a lot better than others, though there have been quite a few positives.
At the same time, there have been quite a few of a lot of things taking place this year and that is the theme we are looking at today, in particular one specific weekend.
Too Much Wrestling In Too Little Time
Over the weekend of June 27, between WWE, AEW, AAA and TNA, there were six, count em six, wrestling events over the course of two days. That is in addition to the three hours of SmackDown, two shows on Wednesday and Thursday each and then the start of a new week the following Monday with the latest episode of Monday Night Raw. On Sunday alone, we’re probably looking at around 12 total hours of wrestling (TNA – 4, NXT – 3, AEW – 5). That’s getting into WrestleMania Weekend levels and... are we really sure that this is good?
I don’t think it is a secret that I love wrestling to a rather crazy extent and watch quite a bit of it. This is what I love to do and I’m lucky enough to get to do this for a living week in and week out. What could be better than that? Unless I get a job getting to test discount parachutes over fields of poisonous cacti, I’m not going to be able to find anything I like much better.
Longer Doesn't Mean Better
Earlier this month, I got to take in the first week of Ring Of Honor Global Wars: Cincinnati and a live episode of AEW Dynamite on the same night. During some of the matches, I kept getting the feeling of how long some of them were lasting. It wasn’t that the matches were really telling a better story or warranted getting such time, but rather that the matches were just being extended for the sake of being extended. Even if the match was ready to wrap up, it needed to go on another five minutes and that was supposed to be a positive just because.
The same thing was true over the weekend with Forbidden Door. AEW pay per views have a lot of positives to them and they are often great, but one thing that they have never been is short. There were twelve matches and the show went until nearly 1am Eastern Standard Time. That came after a two hour Collision the night before, a two hour and fifteen minute Dynamite and whatever Ring Of Honor is doing in its one or two shows that week.
As we come into pretty much any AEW/ROH show and Forbidden Door in particular, the main thing I feel when I think about the run time is that it’s going to be really long. It makes me think of how most matches are going to be stretched out for the sake of making the show last longer and how glad I’m going to be when it’s over. That goes well with seeing SmackDown run three hours and Monday Night Raw having pretty much whatever amount of time it wants every week.
Why Less Can Be More
Compare this to say NXT or Impact Wrestling. The shows are both capped at two hours a week and that is all you get. There is nothing that is going to take too much time and overstay its welcome. It makes for such a better feeling each week as they know what they have to do, are able to map it out week to week, and then present it while leaving the fans wanting more (well hopefully at least).
That last bit is the concept that often feels lost today. Rather than wanting to see more, so many wrestling shows leave me just wanting a break from any promotion that just keeps going and going. There is something to be said about leaving the fans interested and excited about what they are seeing and where the stories are going. Instead, at least for me, so many shows leave me feeling glad that they are over because I don’t want to see them anymore.
It’s a case where the quality doesn’t matter, as I tend to enjoy most AEW shows. It isn’t that I don’t like what I’m seeing, but rather that I don’t want to see them anymore right now. As usual, the solution would seem to be just let things breathe a bit more. How mad would die hard fans really be if the pay per views were twenty minutes shorter? Or if we didn’t have every week get an overrun on Dynamite? The relief I felt when WWE announced that SmackDown would be moving back to two hours starting in the first week of July isn’t the best thing, as I shouldn’t be glad to be seeing less wrestling every week.
Compare those TV shows to Evolve and AAA On FOX. Those shows run about 45 to 55 minutes a week and tend to be that much more enjoyable. You get a mixture of action and storyline developments without dragging everything down and getting on my nerves in one way or another. It’s such a nice change of pace and shows you how things can go well if they are done without letting things get so far out of hand.
WWE Has The Opposite Problem
What makes the situation all the more annoying is how WWE runs its main shows every month. The shows still run about three to four hours, but that is with about five matches every time. The matches themselves will be fine, but there is so much down time between them that they feel like the shows are being stretched out far too long. There might be an hour and a half to two hours of wrestling most of the time and yet the shows will go on about twice that long.
It is another case of having leaving fans getting annoyed for one reason or another, mainly because the promotions are unable to have things go too long or too short. I’m sure that there are corporate/financial reasons to make these things happen, but it is a problem that has been going on for far too long now.
As a fan, I shouldn’t be left exhausted by what I’m seeing but I also shouldn’t be sitting there looking at the show and wanting to scream GET ON WITH IT ALREADY. Instead of wondering why I’m seeing multiple kickouts when the match was ready to be done or being told how I can give WWE more money so I can be able to give them even more money later on, I should be able to just enjoy the show that much more.
Finding The Right Balance
What is frustrating is that, as usual, the solution is right in the middle. Having a show be full of action is a great thing, especially when the action is as entertaining as what you regularly get in AEW. At the same time, there is something to be said about letting the show breathe a bit.
Let me watch a match and then have it sink in a bit before we move on to the next commercial for whatever the latest money making plan WWE has to offer. It’s not like one of the two is that much better, but my goodness just let me enjoy the show instead of moving around as fast as possible and cramming in that much stuff.
Quality Over Quantity
Last weekend was a really huge few days of wrestling with action from multiple promotions. There is something fascinating about the fact that NXT and TNA, the weaker of the promotions presenting shows last weekend, are the ones who most often get this right.
I watched them all, but there is a way to make that a lot more enjoyable and if the promotions could get those things right, maybe the fans would be willing to give them more time for a change.
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