Vince McMahon Makes Interesting Change To Raw And SmackDown

[Jack-Hammer]

Apparently, an edict came down from on High, AKA from Vince, earlier this week stating that beginning with this week, there won't be any wrestling action taking place on Raw or SmackDown while the shows are gone to commercials. Ideas have been floating around as to how this is going to happen ranging from having all the matches be 2 out of 3 falls to simply having the wrestlers pause during the commercial breaks.

I have absolutely no idea how they're going to do this in a way that won't lose the audience or won't get old quickly. It's just not something that I see taking hold because there's no solidified creative way to go about it. Or, I should say, there's probably not any solidified way to go about it that Vince will like. One possibility is cutting down on the number of commercials during Raw, but that's not going to happen, and just having the wrestlers stop the action in the middle of the match during commercials certainly won't sit well with the fans in attendance.

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I bet the live audience will just love that. Suddenly they just stop fighting for 5 to 8 minutes. That's how long rest holds were applied back in the day, give a guy a headlock on the canvas, go to commercial. Soooooo difficult to figure out.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

So they stop wrestling when the match goes to commercial?

[Y 2 Jake]

Attitude matches. 3 minutes max. Might not be a bad thing overall.

[smarkmouth]

I bet the live audience will just love that. Suddenly they just stop fighting for 5 to 8 minutes. That's how long rest holds were applied back in the day, give a guy a headlock on the canvas, go to commercial. Soooooo difficult to figure out.

Certainly beats these guys using outside dives or other high risk moves as a transition to commercial break (or worse yet, as the picture-in-picture action).

[Jack-Hammer]

Another rumor that's floating around is that the matches on Raw and SmackDown will have multiple rounds. Reportedly, it's an idea that's been pitched at some point in the last few weeks, similar to the old European rounds system. The way the old European rounds system played out, if I'm not mistaken, was that a wrestler could get a pin in the first round and the opponent would have an opportunity to tie in the second or third round. If there is a 0-0 or 1-1 tie by the end of the third round, then the match would be declared a draw. A match could early end if a wrestler gets two consecutive pins in the first and second rounds.

ALLEGEDLY, Vince liked this idea because it gives them another way to draw out feuds to lead up to pay-per-views. There would be some matches, reportedly, that wouldn't have rounds but these would mostly be quick squash matches. There are other scenarios that could play out such as a match being 0-0 in the first and second rounds and a wrestler getting a pin or submission in the third and final round. Every scenario presented to Vince would allow them to take breaks and not interrupt matches. If I'm not mistaken, this is something similar to what Impact was doing with the Grand Championship a few years back, though there isn't any sort of point system set up in place as to where "judges" would decide a winner if the match went its time limit without a decisive winner, such as one wrestler winning the most rounds.

I don't know if it will work or not, if they even go with it. My guess is not as Vince probably won't give the concept time to be fleshed out to its full potential. I will say, however, that at least they're thinking somewhat outside the box. The falling ratings and AEW hitting TNT later this year is, if nothing else, causing Vince to consider different ideas that he probably would have turned his nose up at around this time last year. There are still a ton of ifs and maybes regarding all this but if it results in WWE having a generally more serious product where wins and losses actually do count for something in terms of storytelling, setting up matches and a long term goal, then I'm at least willing to give it a shot.

[EnviousDominous]

The WWE is one long-ass shameless infomercial for itself, so they'll just write the show around every dumb-ass idea that Vince pinches off.

There's pros and cons to this whimsical Vinceism, but really the lingering thought on our minds is "Are you fucking kidding me?" This idea brings major changes to the structure of the show, and doesn't explain itself in terms of making all the extra effort seem worth the hassle.

I can only think of three occurrences where the WWE had had a 2 of 3 falls match before this idea popped into Vince's head. Hart Foundation vs Demolition, Mick Foley vs Ric Flair, and John Morrison vs Dolph Ziggler. It seems a little weird now that performers are being all like "Let's make our match more interesting! We'll fight in a 2 out of 3 falls match!", and then the commentators are all like "THAT'S AMAZING!", and I'm all like "This spaghetti is so fucking good!"

Diagnosis; Vince is weird. Stop being weird Vince.

[Big Nick Dudley]

Man, here's a wild and crazy idea - just create a good show. The format has shit to do with WWE being garbage.