WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

[dubcity]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

****.

This is terrible news. The shows have been markedly better at 2 hours.

The networks pay for pro wrestling as if it were a live sports product, so to them more is always better. A 4 hour NFL game is better than a 3 hour one. And wrestling fans suffer for it, until they actually get fed up and stop watching.

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

The networks pay for pro wrestling as if it were a live sports product, so to them more is always better. A 4 hour NFL game is better than a 3 hour one. And wrestling fans suffer for it, until they actually get fed up and stop watching.

We'll see how the shows go the first few weeks to really judge, but so far I'm going in pessimisticly.

Everyone's being like "3 hour smackdown means more time for talents to be showcased" but do they not remember when Raw first went 3 hours? It was such a chore each week, all it really did was increase amount of time a match lasted, and you could tell writers got burnt out, all while not many extra talents got showcased vs an average 2 hour broadcast.

The structure is "3 hours", but what does that mean exactly? Will it have regular ads during the broadcast as if it were on tv? Will it have WWE ads during the broadcast as if it's a PLE? The only thing I've heard so far is anyone watching it on demand/replay won't have ads, so to me that sounds like there will still be breaks during the live broadcast regardless if you have the ad tier Netflix or not, but watching the show after the fact is where the Netflix tier will make a difference.

That's also what's making me debate which tier to sign up for.

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Raw next week is so stacked they bumped the women's IC title match off the show.

Lyra vs Dakota. I would've loved seeing Iyo vs Dakota instead, even if they are teammates.

Hopefully Dakota wins this one, give her a shot and see what she can do.

[SmashMan]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

We'll see how the shows go the first few weeks to really judge, but so far I'm going in pessimisticly.

Everyone's being like "3 hour smackdown means more time for talents to be showcased" but do they not remember when Raw first went 3 hours? It was such a chore each week, all it really did was increase amount of time a match lasted, and you could tell writers got burnt out, all while not many extra talents got showcased vs an average 2 hour broadcast.

Wouldn't it make more sense to compare to how Triple H just booked three hour Raws instead of to how things went 12 years ago with Vince?

I'm 100% on the side of two hours being better than three, not everything Triple H does is great, and some weeks I'm not sure they have enough interesting characters to justify a two-hour show; but there's a big difference in the amount of time-filler bull**** the two of them put into their shows.

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Wouldn't it make more sense to compare to how Triple H just booked three hour Raws instead of to how things went 12 years ago with Vince?



I'm 100% on the side of two hours being better than three, not everything Triple H does is great, and some weeks I'm not sure they have enough interesting characters to justify a two-hour show; but there's a big difference in the amount of time-filler bull**** the two of them put into their shows.

I meant it more in the way that what fans are expecting likely won't be what happens. 3 hour SDs probably doesn't mean more people get showcased, it's probably just longer matches.

There's so many unknowns which is what makes me worry about what could be happening because it's not like WWE to keep quiet about so many details like how the shows will be, what content offerings Netflix will have, or even something as simple as letting non US viewers even know how they can watch SD this week. Communication hasn't been so good on this.

[UFCMPunk]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Seth should have hit back at Punk and said how AJ Lee has been on a break for almost 10 years, when is she coming back or something like that lol. This also just made me realize it's been almost 10 years since AJ retired, and crazy how it was just a few months before the whole Revolution PR thing they were doing at the time, bringing up Charlotte, Sasha and Becky to the main roster.

Maybe AJ can be swayed to do a mix tag match... Seth/Becky vs Punk/AJ Lee?

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Seth should have hit back at Punk and said how AJ Lee has been on a break for almost 10 years, when is she coming back or something like that lol. This also just made me realize it's been almost 10 years since AJ retired, and crazy how it was just a few months before the whole Revolution PR thing they were doing at the time, bringing up Charlotte, Sasha and Becky to the main roster.

Maybe AJ can be swayed to do a mix tag match... Seth/Becky vs Punk/AJ Lee?

The way Punk describes it, she's always busy and only really follows wrestling if it's one of her friends like Naomi or Bayley.

I doubt she's been practicing wrestling either, but would be great if she's back one day.

Wonder what her feelings are in the company too. It's like Punk said on Raw, he didn't hate the company, he hated who was in charge. And AJ probably felt a similar way being in a company that didn't care for women's wrestling, they just wanted "smart, sexy, powerful WWE Divas" with a talent department run by someone who never even wanted her on tv because she wasn't attractive.

[UFCMPunk]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Lillian Garcia & Alicia Taylor are switching brands starting tomorrow night. Garcia will be the announcer for Smackdown and Alicia Taylor will be the RAW announcer.

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Lillian Garcia & Alicia Taylor are switching brands starting tomorrow night. Garcia will be the announcer for Smackdown and Alicia Taylor will be the RAW announcer.

Wonder what's the reason for that. Maybe Lillian just accepted the offer so she'd be back, but when planning things out they wanted Alicia on Raw, or schedules work for them better switching brands?

I completely forgot Lillian was ever a SD ring announcer. She did it between 2011-14 when Justin Roberts was the lead guy on Raw.

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

The "new era" begins tonight.

First 3 hour SD and for non US viewers, first SD not available under its old format, which for me is the first SD not on cable tv, with it being on the same channel since day 1.

Seems like it'll be on YouTube internationally just for tonight with Netflix getting it next week.

Everyone's assuming it'll be like the Raw 3 hour formats with it running from 8-11 ET, but will SD be the "long show"? Raw is also 3 hours but being on Netflix, nobody knows if its a 3 hour cutoff or if there's "overrun" or possibility it ends sooner. Not unusual for streaming shows to vary in episode length on a week to week basis.

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Wonder how many even know SD is on YouTube internationally.

Only 30k in the live stream that's available to millions (and millions) of fans around the world.

Edit-And it barely worked for a bit so maybe that's why. I hope netflix isn't like this.

Although there's still 0 promotion on the stream. You have to find other users online who posted the link to the OFFICIAL wwe stream as if it's some 3rd party link. If WWE had it up publicly on their YouTube channel they'd probably have more views.

That's what I hate about finding it. I can't just go to the video straight from my tvs app, I have to get the link on my phone through social media then get the phone to stream it through the tv app. Easy for me but probably complicated for the average person.



One thing I found interesting is during the USA Network commercial break, the stream goes to the "commercial break in progress" screen. Wonder if that's a sign of what'll happen outside the US for Smackdown going forward since there will be breaks in the US but nobody else. Or might it be like when AEW was also available through streaming (I think BR Live?) and their breaks would be the actual show while the TNT feed was PIP break.

Or does Raw do the same even though everyone's on Netflix? I don't have Netflix or YouTubeTV but did find the interface for a live streaming show through my tv app to be very user friendly and even better than my tv provider (though nothing will ever replace DVRing live tv and watching it while it's still going on live).

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Santos: If it isn't Pretty Deadly, or should I say...Pretty Little Liars.

*Brawl ensues*

Prince: No violence in the workplace!


Heyman about to walk through a metal detector backstage and quickly sidesteps it.

[reyes the roof]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Three hours is brutal for smackdown

[Majingir]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

Three hours is brutal for smackdown

It's definitely tough to fill 3 hours, will be tougher on the Raw end to fill 3 commercial free hours (one good thing I guess about SD being 3 is that it'll still have ads so it won't truly be 3 hours).

If it drags too much, I might have to watch the way I used to watch Raw. I used to start watching Raw 90 minutes into the show, but after skipping ads and any part of the show I didn't care for, I always caught up to the live broadcast before the show ended.

But with the transfer window, depending how many talent come over from NXT, that could at least help the depth on the roster, but even with depth, 3 hours is a lot.

[reyes the roof]

Re: WWE RAW & Smackdown Thread

It's Tiffy time, nice swerve with the cash in