TNA Talents Accepting Indy Bookings
The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports TNA is becoming more lenient with letting talent work other places.
It starts with the recent contracts that have been signed. Reportedly those contracts have little guaranteed money or none at all. The talent is only getting paid for dates they work. In addition to that, since TNA doesn’t have many dates booked for the rest of the year, they’ve given their blessing for the roster to work more independent shows.
In the past TNA would ask talents to get their approval before taking any non-TNA bookings. Now TNA is letting talents take whatever bookings they can get, just as long as the indy booking doesn’t have the talent appear on television, pay-per-view or iPPV.
4 Reasons RAW Needs To Be 2 Hours
My latest column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review spells out 4 simple reasons why WWE RAW needs to be 2 hours.
The following is an excerpt:
WWE RAW needs to be two hours. This has become more obvious since it moved its start time from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m. in July 2012.
I see a lot of people on social media agree. Their reasoning is pretty basic and revolves around there being a lot of dead space in terms of quality content. Let me provide some more substantial reasoning on why this needs to happen.
Less segments to fill
The obvious is two hours will help eliminate some dead space in the show. Less is more. Leave them wanting more. All of this can be accomplished in the reduction of RAW content. I know WWE is in the game of content, content and more content. That can still take place. Just have it take place everywhere else. Put more content on the WWE Network. Shoot more segments for the WWE app or YouTube page.
Having shows like Main Event, SmackDown, NXT and all the specials they want on the Network means there’s no reason to pollute the flagship show Monday night.
Take a look at this past week’s RAW. Entertaining stuff all around with Dean Ambrose. The middle of the card has a lot of quality. The female wrestling is getting better with more legit talent on both the main roster and coming up from NXT.
Going to two hours won’t get rid of variety entertainment segments like a bunny wrestling. However, being inserted as one segment in the middle of a hot two hours is better than one segment in a stagnant three hours.
Better competition to the NFL
It’s no secret NFL on Monday is the top competition to RAW and its audience during the fall season.
If WWE cut the show down to two hours and began at 8 p.m., it would strategically place the two most important segments unopposed. The opening segment of RAW would take place while the pregame show is still going. The NFL game usually doesn’t kick off until 8:30.
A typical NFL first half takes around an hour and twenty minutes to complete. This means halftime would be taking place right as WWE enters their main event segment if the show was to end at 10 p.m.
The show ending at 10 would also serve more conducive to the younger audience which WWE makes a point to target to.
CLICK HERE to see the other 2 reasons.
