A Little History

Many of you are too young to realize this, but the current format for WWE RAW has been exactly the same for fourteen years. Here are the major elements that we use when putting together an episode of RAW:

• 2 hours of prime-time programming
• interview segments followed by matches followed by angles, all in sequential order. One sequence always follows another. Flashbacks, flash-forwards, and other time cutaways are not possible because we are live.
• One or two important matches, surrounded largely by filler. Most segments setup a PPV match. The ones that don’t serve next to no larger purpose.

If it sounds like I’m being hard on my product, it’s because this winning formula of ours continues to win. And when you’re winning, there’s no real reason to innovate. That’s why, when we changed our set and moved to two hours in early 1997 and began writing shows to accommodate that sort of time, we never thought we were going to keep doing that forever. But here we are. The fact is, we had one hour of television in prime time before WCW started killing us, and a lot of us miss that single-hour format. You had to be tighter. You had to fit just as much in. You didn’t have time for filler. It was exciting. We’re the fat winners.

Right now, We put on two hours on Monday, one hour on Tuesday, two hours on Friday, and three hours every fourth Sunday. I’m not suggesting getting rid of all that (and lose those advertising dollars, are you crazy?). What I’m suggesting is that for the next little while, I’m going to try an experiment. Call it fantasy booking, if you want, though being who I am it’s hardly that. But so many people complain about our product without actually coming up with an alternative product, or a fix to our product. The fact is, you don’t know what you want. But I do. At least, I think I do.

This afternoon, prepare for the first new spin on Monday night RAW in fourteen years.