There’s a lot of content for WWE fans these days. Quite frankly, there’s too much content and from the sounds of things there’s about to be even more. Way back in June of last year I wrote a post called I Missed WWE RAW This Week & I Don’t Care. In that post I pointed out how the WWE was in a stretch where there were four PPVs in a stretch of 50 days. According to a WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler after the upcoming WWE brand split, that may be the norm.
Pro Wrestling.Net reports a discussion that Lawler had with a fan at the 38th annual Superman Celebration in Metropolis, IL where he had this to say: “The interesting news was what he told my best friend later. He said that they would have two pay-per-view events monthly, one for Raw and one for Smackdown. This would happen except for the big four events (WrestleMania, SummerSlam, the Royal Rumble, and Survivor Series). I can’t imagine how this will work but he told us last year about Smackdown coming to USA, moving to Tuesday, and going live at some point.”
This would be a very bad thing in my opinion. If this is true, it would mean the WWE would be going from 12 PPVs a year to a whopping 20. (Yes, I know they’re not really “pay per views” any more with the advent of the WWE Network.) And that’s just if you include the main WWE brands of RAW and Smackdown. Once you throw NXT into the mix you’re presumably adding at least three or four more “events” per year.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s just too much content from the WWE currently. Let’s take a look at what a wrestling fan would have to watch if they wanted to watch JUST the “wrestling” product on a regular basis:
- Monday Night RAW – 3 hours per week / 12 hours per month
- Smackdown – 2 hours per week / 8 hours per month
- WWE Monthly Event – 3 hours per month
- NXT – 1 hour per week / 4 hours per month
That’s already 27 hours per month for what I’d consider to be a “casual” wrestling fan. And let’s not forget the other content that WWE continues to push such as Swerved, Unfiltered, The Edge & Christian Show, Legends, The Stone Cold Podcast, Camp WWE, WWE 24, Table For 3, etc. Some of these like WWE 24 I watch whenever they come out and they’re absolutely outstanding. Others like Table For 3 I’ll take a peak at on YouTube and cherry pick which ones I want to watch on the Network. Others still like Edge & Christian or Camp WWE don’t interest me in the slightest. And that’s fine… not ALL WWE programming is geared toward all fans.
Don’t forget the thousands of hours of archived footage including every WWE PPV in history, WCW, AWA, ECW, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they NEED to have that much content to have and entire Network devoted to professional wrestling. It’s an absolutely amazing product, it’s a no-brainer for any wrestling fan and is the best $9.99 (plus tax) I spend every month. That being said, I don’t foresee myself sitting down for an additional Sunday evening per month and watching another PPV. There’s only so many hours in a day and only so many hours that I as a wrestling fan can justify taking away from my family and devoting to wrestling. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Do you watch all of the WWE PPVs? Would you continue if they added another every month?
