Thought of the Day: The One Thing About NXT
I know I come up with one or two more things to love about NXT every single week, but there’s one that trumps them all.About 95% of the time, whenever the show starts, you’re getting a wrestling match. Not a promo, not an announcement, not a contract signing, but a wrestling match. At the end of the day, that’s exactly what people are watching to see and it’s the first thing you get. I don’t watch Raw to see a 20 minute lecture to set up the night’s events. Those should be set up the previous week to give the fans something to look forward to leading up to the show. NXT starts off with a wrestling match of some sort and it puts you in the right kind of mood. I shouldn’t be snarling at the show to get on with it already fifteen minutes in, and that happens far too often on Raw.
At the WWE/WWF’s peak (2000-2001), they had tons of big matches on Raw and Smackdown. May 2001 alone had Chris Jericho/Steve Austin, Austin/Chris Benoit and TLC III. Booking big matches on TV has never been a problem.
Sure it has. Like now for instance. 2000-2001 had one of the best rosters the company has ever had. They don’t have that luxury now and the repetitive TV matches are proving it.
Interesting analysis. I don’t have much an issue that they Open the shows with talking, even if it gets old, same with not announcing whatcomplicates the week before even though it’s the simplest way in the world to get people excited for next week.
I don’t wanna use the Attitude Era as an example again but whether they announced something or not they were really good at leaving the audience hanging to where they had to tune in next week. Take the night after Austin was fired for example, despite the whole story being awesome (especially this night) it ended with Austin putting a letter in McMahon’s pocket. From that alone it kept you hooked all week to see what was in that letter (3 en though it was obvious what it was) and to see the fallout considering how bad Vince was humiliated. That’s just 1 example but the cliffhanger was a constant across almost every Raw back then and it worked, for whatever reason they don’t do that much anymore, they usually don’t give you a reason to watch anymore and it hurt things badly.
Another thing I want to see Raw take from NXT is to keep it simple. Alot of times Raw complicates things WAY TOO MUCH. Sometimes you don’t need a whole murder mystery to get from point A to point B.
I’m not the dumbass who thinks wwe can sustain being a 3 hour talk show when it struggles to pull in viewers already.
No you are if you think that anyone would watch Raw if it were nothing but segments and jobber matches. They’re having trouble maintaining an audience as it is. Idiot
That’s WWEs own fault for doing Kane vs Bryan and Show vs Reigns 50 times over when you have hundreds of other people on call.
Comes down to either WWE having no idea what to do with 3 hour raws or Triple H and Stephanie getting as much spotlight as possible. Maybe both.
Completely disagree. I’d go the other way and say too much wrestling is offered up on free tv. What’s the purpose in ordering a PPV (or the Network) if every match has already been done on Raw or Smackdown?
That’s getting into a whole other discussion, but you don’t have to have big name matches on Raw every week.
TERRIBLE idea M.R. How would you expect ppv or network subscriptions to do well if no one watches your regular programming.
What would make you suggest no one would watch?
What reason would they have? When I was a kid Raw had more big moments than most non-Mania ppv’s. Title changes, big returns, etc. the only reason I still watch is on the glimmer of hope something memorable happens again. No one would watch if it were just a bunch of talking segments and an Adam Rose vs Fandango match
You’re a moron.
KB, I used to think that too, for decades in fact. But it’s a new era, and if the last 5 years of WWE and TNA have taught me anything, it’s that an agonizingly long, multi-person promo is essential to get us in the mood for actual ring action. Preferably when some of them pretend to break the fourth wall (i.e., Hogan referring to Sting as “Steve”, Sting calling Hogan “Terry”), which never fails to confound and titillate me.
After which, I’m most comfortable with a nice block of commercials and then right back to a recap of the promo. Then I’m ready for some backstage comedy!
OK, I may have broken the sarcasm fourth wall with that last comment…
I’ve been thinking that just using a quick 3 minute segment that’s basically a highlight package of the last week and hyping the big segments for this week that have been highlighted, before transitioning to the first match.