Yes, I like professional wrestling, but I don't like the way it's presented on TV.
The average TV match lasts less than 5 minutes. If the match goes longer than that, there's always a four minute commercial break, and you can generally predict when the match is about to go to commercial -- someone is always thrown out of the ring.
While matches last less than 5 minutes, promos can go on forever -- up to 15 minutes. And they never go to commercial when someone is cutting a promo. That means to the WWE promoters, the talk is more important than the actual wrestling. And, of course it would be, as their main interest in doing the TV show is to promote the next pay-per-view. In essence, WWE Raw and all the other shows like it are infomericals.
Interesting side note: in last night's show, Vince McMahon took on Ric Flair in a street fight. The match was at least 10 minutes long, but there were no commercial breaks, which is odd. Was it because Vince was in the match? Probably.
And the main event? The ultimate handicap match: John Cena and Randy Orton versus the "entire Raw roster." -- a 2 on 17 elimination match. Cena and Orton actually pinned at least 6 wrestlers in less than 10 minutes before the match abruptly came to an end -- the remaining 11 wrestlers attacked Cena and Orton, causing the ref to call for the bell. What a dumb ending. Is the entire Raw roster heels? Why would all of these wrestlers, including Hacksaw Jim Duggan, give Cena and Orton a beatdown? Why would the ref disqualify all 11 wrestlers at the same time?
It's been quite a while since WWE has even pretended to explain match storylines on TV. Most of the time, they don't even bother to announce the winner of the match; and the value of titles has never been of less importance.
The average TV match lasts less than 5 minutes. If the match goes longer than that, there's always a four minute commercial break, and you can generally predict when the match is about to go to commercial -- someone is always thrown out of the ring.
While matches last less than 5 minutes, promos can go on forever -- up to 15 minutes. And they never go to commercial when someone is cutting a promo. That means to the WWE promoters, the talk is more important than the actual wrestling. And, of course it would be, as their main interest in doing the TV show is to promote the next pay-per-view. In essence, WWE Raw and all the other shows like it are infomericals.
Interesting side note: in last night's show, Vince McMahon took on Ric Flair in a street fight. The match was at least 10 minutes long, but there were no commercial breaks, which is odd. Was it because Vince was in the match? Probably.
And the main event? The ultimate handicap match: John Cena and Randy Orton versus the "entire Raw roster." -- a 2 on 17 elimination match. Cena and Orton actually pinned at least 6 wrestlers in less than 10 minutes before the match abruptly came to an end -- the remaining 11 wrestlers attacked Cena and Orton, causing the ref to call for the bell. What a dumb ending. Is the entire Raw roster heels? Why would all of these wrestlers, including Hacksaw Jim Duggan, give Cena and Orton a beatdown? Why would the ref disqualify all 11 wrestlers at the same time?
It's been quite a while since WWE has even pretended to explain match storylines on TV. Most of the time, they don't even bother to announce the winner of the match; and the value of titles has never been of less importance.
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