WWE: Should Monday Night Raw Become a 3-Hour Show?

It would be an effective move on the WWE’s part to return Monday Night Raw to a three-hour format.

Currently, the show runs two hours.

In addition to Raw, WWE produces SmackDown for two hours on Friday nights. While NXT and Superstars originally were televised, both are now exclusively aired on WWE.com.

Everyone from the fans to the superstars will benefit from an additional hour on Monday night.

It’s just one hour, but it can do so much.

Here are some of the advantages and reasons behind extending Raw.

Wider Use of Talent

Week after week, fans ask themselves why (Zack Ryder, The Miz, insert your superstar here) is missing.

The roster is chock full of talent.

There are nearly 80 characters listed on WWE.com, including managers, Divas and announcers.

In one week, we see about 30 to 40 of them.

Four hours isn’t enough.

Now that Raw is the “SuperShow,” the length needs to fit the title.

A third hour allows for more superstars to get in on the action.

Figure, in one hour—minus about 22 minutes of commercials—you can squeeze in a minimum of three more matches. Assuming they’re all singles competitions, that’s six more wrestlers to receive a spotlight every week.

Adding three more matches a week is just what the Tag Team and Divas Championships need to remain relevant and rebound.

More Effective Use of Time

First and foremost, with an additional hour, storylines can have more time to develop.

Secondly, if there’s one thing that drives me absolutely nuts while watching Raw (or SmackDown, for that matter), it's a cut to commercial mid-match.

Cutting to commercial after one entrance is bad enough, but it’s maddening when it happens right in the middle of an epic match between Mark Henry and CM Punk with the WWE Championship on the line.

It happens in one of two ways.

One gets thrown out of the ring and Michael Cole proclaims, “Can Wrestler X regain control? Find out, when we return.”

After returning, Wrestler X is still on the floor.

You mean to tell me, nothing has happened during the five minutes of commercials?

There could have been 30 count-outs.

Worse, when the match returns, Cole explains, “Here’s what happened during the break,” and a replay is shown.

Naturally, it’s always a high-powered slam or a surmounting comeback.

That’s okay, WWE, we as fans didn’t want to see either of those live.

The DVR Era Makes it More Acceptable

A decent sample size of wrestling fans likely owns some version of a DVR-like recording program.

The current two-hour program can be watched in about half the time.

Extending it to three hours can still be completely reviewed in a little over one hour.

This too, makes more effective use of time.

Final Proposal

Return to the older format of Raw being the main show and SmackDown being the secondary show.

It’s mostly like this already.

But specifically, get rid of the facade of two separate rosters.

Get the majority of the top-card guys on Raw with a couple of mid-carders filling in blanks. Then on SmackDown, put the rest of the best in, mixed with a majority of mid-level talent and a few low-end guys.

Get rid of mid-match commercial breaks.

Promos could even stand to be shortened. No non-wrestling segment should take the entire frame between two commercial breaks.

Likewise, there are way too many recaps of earlier events throughout the night.

In last week’s Monday Night Raw—which started with Brock Lesnar’s attack on Triple H—there were four replays of the opening segment.

Four replays, not including the live portion, in two hours.

It actually boils down to the same five segments in an hour and 20 minutes of actual Raw events sans commercials.

Extend it to three hours. Cut out the fat.

The fans get more action, and the wrestlers get more time on screen.

We all win.

They just need to make sure it’s not from 9 p.m. to midnight for the West Coast fans that still enjoy watching it live.