Vince McMahon: WWE Chairman is no longer allowing wrestling during commercial breaks on WWE TV. The company is attempting to change the way they present themselves.
The WWE are on an upward movement financially with their lucrative deals with Fox and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They also have a case study with Harvard and Vince McMahon has managed to land huge partners for his XFL dream project.
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However, they are surging in the opposite direction when it comes to the quality of their product. Low ratings, wrestlers wanting to leave and criticism of the booking decisions from fans has plagued the company in recent times. This has not bode well from them considering the rise of AEW.
The WWE have attempted several measures to arrest their downfall. Such as the introduction of the 24/7 championship and bringing legends back on TV. The WWE are now reportedly looking to change the manner in which they present themselves as more real sports like. The method they’ve chosen however, has led to bizarre TV.
Bizzare week of WWE Television
PostWrestling.com have reported that Vince McMahon has demanded that there be no wrestling during commercial breaks on television. The reason given for this is that Vince believes that legitimate sports don’t play during the break and wants to emulate that in the presentation of his company.
This has ultimately led to them employing multiple methods to ensure they don’t go against Vince’s edict. The commercial breaks have seen heel wrestlers riling up the crowd. Single matches have turned into tag team matches. Wrestlers have interrupted matches and have had conversations among themselves until the break ends. The worst of them however, is the multitude of 2 out of 3 falls matches. This used to be a match stipulation that was reserved for matches that would culminate a feud. It has now been reduced to a prop to help work their way around a mad man’s mandate.
Here are more details regarding the new presentation from PostWrestling.com:
On Sunday’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez reported a recent WWE production meeting where Vince McMahon has instituted a change where there will no more wrestling during the commercial breaks on television. In checking up on this, I confirmed this is true with the edict announced this past Monday during the production meeting. The idea is that legitimate sports don’t play during the break, so they are adjusting their match presentation.
This resulted in several 2-of-3 falls matches and other ideas to pause the match and resume after the commercial. It will be a challenge to come up with organic ideas to break the matchup, especially on Raw where you have many multiple segment matches for the three-hour format. It does hurt the flow of the match when you have a commercial break in the middle and from a match presentation, it hurts on television.
On SmackDown, they still have two matches per show that run during the commercial breaks with the picture-in-picture on the USA Network. To clarify, it is unknown if this will continue on SmackDown or not.
Apart from breaking the flow of a match, one can’t help but wonder how it affects the viewing experience of the live audience. It remains to be seen though if WWE continue with this and for how long. Considering Vince McMahon’s long history of changing his mind at the drop of the hat.
