By Will
TNA will join the ranks of Smackdown, Raw, Thunder, and Nitro in a week when it finally moves back to two hours next week (the first time TNA has had a two hour slot since 2004 when they were still running pay-per-views every week.)
Many have said that this decision will aid TNA in the long run as the promotion will have more time to develop solid storylines and provide the fans with lengthy, interesting matches week in and week out. I say that it will give TNA an extra hour to make a mockery of the talent they have at their disposal, and shine a gigantic spotlight on the problems they have had since day one as it comes to booking decisions.
At any rate, the amount of time a promotion has to work with should have no bearing on how much quality is placed into the show week in and week out.
WCW Monday Nitro is probably the greatest example of time meaning nothing as far as quality of product is concerned.
When Nitro hit the airwaves in fall of 1995 they did so with only one hour to work with. With Eric Bischoff at the healm, the show managed to produce an entertaining sixty minutes every week that included major angles, huge moments, and decent main events that often were fairly lengthy (as far as 90s television bouts were concerned.)
With the promotion riding high and pulling ahead of the WWF’s own Monday Night Raw, Nitro was awarded a second hour to work with in 1996. Along with the NWO storyline that began that same year, WCW managed to work a full schedule of entertainment into every two hours they had.
By 1998, the Turner Networks were so enthralled with Nitro and the success it was bringing to their company that they awarded WCW yet ANOTHER hour to spend on Nitro along with a second two hour telecast on the TBS every week as well.
Thus throughout 1998 WCW had well over five hours of television on the air a week (not counting shows such as Saturday Night and Worldwide), and were handling it well by producing at least great matches and hot angles on every show.
However, as the decade came to a close so did the NWO angle and by 1999 the three hour format began to show its age when WCW started losing the creative ability to ply their trade for five hours every week.
Thunder was the first segment of the WCW television heirarchy to suffer from this stagnation as the amount of quality matches and angles soon began to decrease. WCW was, however, managing to keep the three hour Nitro telecast watchable by simply putting wrestlers in the ring and allowing them to wrestle far longer than anything Raw was doing at the time period. However, Raw was also putting together much more entertaining segments than Nitro.
When Vince Russo took over the reigns of WCW in late 1999 he also reduced the time from three down to two hours believing that he would be unable to write enough material for three hours. However, as the “more wrestling to fill more time” logic had proven for the promotion just a few months earlier, time is not a factor when it comes to good wrestling.
Russo’s problem was that he would not be unable to fill up three hours with his form of booking, which has come to be known as crash television. In Russo’s “no more than five minutes per segment after the opening interview” style, three hours would have been an eternity.
Russo, however, proved that even two hours could seem like forever when poor angles and even poorer matches were being provided to entertain wrestling fans week in and week out. Soon, the two hour Nitro broadcast became a chore to sit through for any wrestling fan that just could not bring themselves to miss an episode in case something big or good did indeed happen. Yes, there were a few times when that did occur after 1998 (for example: the night Chris Benoit…yes the urban legend did exist in wrestling history at one time even if WWE says otherwise…performed the swan dive headbutt off the top of a cage while Jimmy Snuka returned for a one shot spot to do his famous superfly splash from the top as well,) but these times were the exception rather than the rule.
Nitro finally started recovering from Russo’s handling of the show and the company itself in its final months, and the program started to put together two hours of entertainment again (generally based off of decent-to-good wrestling matches rather than any entertaining angles.)
When WCW was bought out by Vince McMahon the company had expanded from a single hour of watchable television to a full five hours of can’t miss T.V. at the height of its popularity back down to “pay me, and I’ll think about watching” junk on the downside of the promotion’s career.
The moral of the story: don’t let Vince Russo book your television programs.
Actually, the real moral is that a good wrestling company can keep fans entertained for however many hours they have to work with no matter if it is one, two, or even three. On the flip side a promotion that is rooted in bad booking, poor planning, and ill advised decisions can only get worse when those ingredients are given even more time to sour week in and week out.
