Take a break

[tiger_rick]

14 minutes ago, Shane O' Mac Version 2 said:

No wrestling during our commercial breaks.

That's another of those things that people have been banging on about for years. Like shut up and wrestle and what Pity would call "push the cruisers". All part of why it's currently a mess. This has probably come from those fucking feedback surveys. People don't like to miss part of the match for adverts. So do they resolve that by having shorter matches or create a load of 2/3 falls and elimination matches that must look ridiculous live as everyone waits for the ads to finish?

Edit: Thought I'd create a topic for this and see what people think? Anyone actually like Vince's latest idea? Or any thoughts on how it could work?

[King Mal the Glorious]

Don't ad breaks come every 10 minutes or so in the US? This is going to get ridiculous quickly.

[DavidB6937]

It's easy enough to book a match so that nothing interesting happens during the break and no one actually misses anything. I don't care if I miss some shitty rest hold or something. I'd much rather that than having to put up with overbooked nonsense every week with multiple falls and whatever else. I imagine it'd get pretty awkward from a live perspective too if you're at the show and they're suddenly having promos mid-match and whatever else to fill in the breaks.

[tiger_rick]

I never minded the ad breaks per se. I minded that they were in every match, often more than one, because every match has to take about 5 years of TV time and the formula for getting to an ad break was so fucking nauseating with it almost always following someone being thrown out of the ring while Michael Cole yells "Raw rolls on" in his inauthentic drawl.

They never used to do it. Like many things it's part of the evolution into the show feeling so identical every week.

[DavidB6937]

Yeah I think what I never liked is the way that it felt planned. Which is a strange thing to say about a pre-determined show obviously, but it's always one of those things that felt like they were building towards or working around. Hard to explain really but Cole always telegraphs stuff which is annoying.

[BomberPat]

I mentioned on Twitter how the decline in WWE has occurred in parallel with when they stopped focusing on filming a live wrestling show for TV, and started producing a TV show set at a live wrestling show, and it was this latest idea that started it.

The example I used was how wrestlers used to talk directly to the camera, to the audience, and how they're told not to any more. And by not addressing that audience, they're not connecting with them. But it's not just that - the Bushwhackers would lick the camera, Razor Ramon would throw his toothpick at it. The camera in wrestling isn't a "fourth wall", it's an active participant in the show, because you know you're watching a live event, the camera shouldn't be invisible the way it would be for a TV drama.

And this is the same thing - they're producing a TV show for which the audience are a prop, not filming a live show any more. 

In the Attitude Era, the solution to not have matches run into the ad breaks was to have them only go a couple of minutes. I'd probably rather not go back to that.

But we have time minutes for a reason. If they know there's going to be a break in 15 minutes time, the next match should have a 15 minute time limit. Structure the show so that matches don't run into the breaks, they have that power. Alternatively, didn't they used to do a thing where you could watch on the app during the breaks?

Live crowds are going to get ever more disinterested at best and restless at worse if they're expected to sit through stop-start matches where they just dim the lights and stop wrestling right in the middle of the match for no fucking reason, perhaps multiple times a show. And I pity anyone who has to try and work with that in-ring, and keep any semblance of logical psychology going, let alone be tasked with getting the crowd back into it.

[Mr Butternut Squash]

I appreciate the idea but geez the convoluted way they're going about it is gonna get old real soon.

Feels like the roster is being eaten alive by these ratings grab changes. This wildcard madness overexposing the same handful of guys, killing the mid card and any chance of building fresh challengers for the titles. Now with this outbreak of elimination and 2/3 falls matches means every fucker is eating pins twice as often. Even Kofi, on the run of his career with the strongest non-mma/part time championship run I can remember, takes his first pin since Mania, against Adolph Ziggler. A nothing match that nobody wanted and Kofi's hot streak ending like it means fuck all. 

 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Remember that footage of Batista and Big Show in the Hammerstein and it went to commercial, so Big Show went outside and started calling the fans pussies? That's what they should do during the breaks.

[Devon Malcolm]

5 minutes ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

Remember that footage of Batista and Big Show in the Hammerstein and it went to commercial, so Big Show went outside and started calling the fans pussies?

Was that when the ECW tossers were chanting "Change the channel"? I always wondered if Vince went mad because Tazz acknowledged it on commentary too. He must have done.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

1 minute ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Was that when the ECW tossers were chanting "Change the channel"? I always wondered if Vince went mad because Tazz acknowledged it on commentary too. He must have done.

That's the one.

[UK Kat Von D]

The could just have the matches continue as normal during the breaks and show anything important as a replay when they come back. Would stop channel flicking during the ads because people would know they have to be watching as soon as it came back incase they had missed something 

[Hernan]

The best two out of three falls matches are suitable for Mexican promotions like CMLL but I don't see it for WWE.

I would have gone with european rounds rather than best two out of three falls matches. Why? Because there's a little break in european rounds matches while the best of two out of three falls does not. However, I do not believe european rounds can't be a good thing for a company in American soil.

Personally, I wouldn't care for commercial breaks during live airing but show the whole match (with parts removed from the live airing) on the Network. Nothing special though.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

I'm not sure how the commercial breaks really work- does WWE decide when they happen, or are they mandated by USA Network to go to commercial at certain times?

I don't like how they settle into rest holds for 3 minutes while they do commercial breaks, but cutting the matches up like they've done this past week is much worse. They've got two better options IMO:

a) Let the matches run as normal during breaks. If there's big spots, replay them out of commercial. To really create that "anything can happen" feel, have matches end during breaks every once in a while. You wouldn't make a habit of it, but it would make things less predictable- and make being there live mean a little more, to see these things as they happen.

b) Install time limits. This is dependent on what control WWE have over their ad breaks, I don't know. But have undercard matches for a 10 minute time limit, main event for 20-30 minutes, and work the breaks around that if possible.

[Supremo]

Having not watched for a couple of weeks, this new approach to advert breaks sounds like a complete nightmare and a huge hurdle for getting back into it. As if the show couldn't get anymore overproduced, convoluted, unnatural and awkward! They now can't even go to a fucking advert break normally, insisting on coming up with, "creative," yet endlessly repeated ways of having multiple falls or restarts to pause the action. I'm sure I read one of the TV shows this week had two separate two-out-of-three fall matches. Fucking hell.

I get the concept. It is a bit daft to have advert breaks during wrestling matches on a wrestling show. You wouldn't get that with other types of sport or entertainment, where important stuff that the viewer should be following happens when they're unable to see it. It's so typical of the way they currently do things though that they didn't just shorten the matches, re-emphasise time limits or get the Networks to give them more control over when the breaks occur. Didn't they do at least one show in the past with no advert breaks at all, as a ratings ploy? So it's obvious there is some type of wiggle room available.

Personally, shorter matches would be fine with me. Does anyone actually enjoy those overlong, blatantly stretched out Raw matches the likes of Seth Rollins and Cesaro do to fill time? I'd much rather they shave five to ten minutes off all of them and do something more fun like a Drake Maverick skit or something. Fill the time with vignettes, backstage storylines and music videos. It'd improve the show immeasurably and give far more guys a chance to get over. Drake's wedding should've been a multi-segment, if not multi-show affair. Not a one minute video and a couple of photos online.

We shouldn't be surprised. This is just another level of descent down the rabbit hole you get when a maniac in his late seventies is running the gaff. I mean, in all seriousness, would anyone be surprised if it eventually came out that Vince had some type of Dementia? That's exactly how this show feels these days. Just imagine coming to this show with fresh eyes! People backstage weirdly standing and interacting like 2D characters from PaRappa the Rapper, talking to each other in that awkward, unnatural language, everyone using all those strange buzzwords, announcers reacting to everything in that tragically desperate, insincere way as if they've got a gun to their head, and now coming in and out of every advert break in a panicked, convoluted mess. And then make it three hours long! Haha! It's the antithesis of a show that would ever attract new fans.

I read an excellent point on Twitter the other day about John Cena inadvertently being the root cause for all their current problems. For over a decade, as Vince descended into this madness, Cena was so fucking talented and such a superstar that he managed to overcome being scripted by a weirdo oddball losing his marbles. As such, the company never had to really stop and address any of the growing issues. And then by the time Big Match John fucked off to Hollywood the rot was set and it was only once they had no-one capable of papering over the cracks anymore that it became apparent just how bad things had become. All this bullshit and Seth Rollins is your saving grace? No wonder he's having a constant cry on Twitter.

 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Supremo

[Statto]

ITV used to go to ads during Formula One races back when interesting things occasionally happened during Formula One races. I guess it doesn't now it's on Sky, I don't follow it anymore.

Dunno what the score is for motor racing in the US - they obviously don't go through the whole Indy 500 or those other mega long races without an ad break. Maybe they do it split screen these days?

What happens in cricket? Do any balls get missed during ads or do they take 'TV timeouts' between play like American Football, for example? Not necessarily trying to make direct comparisons between those sports & wrestling, just throwing thoughts out there.

The idea of flexible gaps between ad breaks to allow for the odd longer match is an appealing one, but one you'd have to take the rough with the smooth - to go back to American Football, you get those times where there's a lengthy drive so no ad breaks for while, but then you'll get Touchdown > ad break > Kick-off  > immediate ad break again.

But yeah, shorter matches on the whole wouldn't be a bad thing. You employ about 3000 wrestlers, let's see some of them. And the more often we see them, the less people might look at 70% of them as losers who can't ever get on Raw so aren't worth bothering with.

I just hope this doesn't lead back to the virtual elimination of entrances being shown on TV like they toyed with for a short while a couple of years back. Entrances are so important IMO.