How much time on RAW is actual wrestling?

[Guest Downhome]

Here you go...

 

Back in the summer of 2001, I presented a column where I essentially timed an edition of Raw to determine how much time was spend on wrestling, and how much was spent on other aspects of "Sports Entertainment".  What I found out was, on that particular edition, there was only twenty minutes of match time out of a two hour-plus show.  For those that want to look back at that column, you can do so by clicking here.

 

I was thinking, almost two years later, of trying it again, and since people often complain about the lack of action the week before a Pay-per-view, I thought it would be an interesting time to bring back this experiment.

 

So, once again, with the aid of my trusty remote, I have broken down the whole show. Now, for those of you playing along at home, your times may be slightly different, so consider this an estimate, and allow for a margin of error of a few seconds.

 

Raw on April 21st ran about two hours, nine minutes and twenty five seconds from the time the WWE logo appeared on the screen until they went to black at the end of the broadcast. Twenty nine minutes and thirty seconds of the show were devoted to commercial breaks (that number does not include the various plugs that appear in the program, only those actual "breaks" in the show). That leaves us with one hour, thirty nine minutes and fifty five seconds in which the actual program takes place.

 

Within that time, there were eleven segments (a segment being from one commercial break to the next). Out of those segments, five included an actual match (with Booker vs. HHH in two of those segments). That means  six segments were devoted to interviews, recaps, skits, anything but an actual wrestling match.

 

Let's look at the actual amount of time in those bouts. Here is the time of each match, from opening bell to closing bell:

 

Chris Jericho vs. Hurricane: 6:02

Rodney Mack vs. ???: 1:46

Steiner & Test vs. 3MW: 3:44

Booker vs. Triple H: 3:35 and 10:18 (broken by commercial)

 

Note: I am not including the Dudleys-Spike/Trish angle because a bell never rang, and the referee never made a call, so it wasn't a match.

 

In order to be fair to WWE, I timed the matches a second time. For each bout, I started the clock at the moment the first participant made their entrance into the arena, and stopped timing when they cut away from the match, for any reason. That means these match times include intros, pre-match mic work, post match fighting and celebration, as well as the bout itself.

 

Chris Jericho vs. Hurricane: 9:45

Rodney Mack vs. ???: 4:12

Steiner & Test vs. 3MW: 6:55

Booker vs. Triple H: 8:45 and 12:40 (broken by commercial)

 

Notice, the pre and post match activities are actually taking up more time than the "official" action in some cases. In the final analysis, the match time from bell to bell is twenty five minutes and twenty five seconds. If your throw in the pre and post match stuff, it jumps up to forty two minutes and twenty seconds.

 

So, there was slightly more wrestling last night than the last time I did this experiment, so I suppose WWE deserves some credit for that.  Of course, if I were to compare the amount of time spent on things relevant to this Sunday's Pay-per-view versus things that had nothing to do with Backlash (which includes two of the four matches last night, and the never ending Lita segment), we might see one of the real problems with Raw today.

 

In the end, I suppose its not the amount of time, it's what they do (and don't do) with it. 

 

Show: 2:09:25

Commercials: 29:30

Show time: 1:39:55

Number of matches: 4

Number of segments: 11

Match time (from bell to bell): 25:25

Match time (from first entrance to cut away): 42:20

 

 

You can write me at [email protected].

 

...just thought you would be interested.

 

Sincerely,

...Downhome...

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Wow, 25% of the show was wrestling. Why don't they call it "World Commercials-take longer-than-matches Entertainment"

[Guest Jack Tunney]

Is it just me or were there even LESS matches in the early 1998 RAW's?

[Guest razazteca]

Did the Rock Concert get more time than the total amout of time of actual wrestling? It seemed like the Rock's 2 segments of taunting and beating of Goldberg lasted more than 30 minutes.

[Guest Downhome]

I wish they would cut back on some of the entrances. I mean, would it really hurt all that much to have some of the entrances take place durring commercials rather than on TV? I understand that it's a must for some guys, but there are plenty who could just be standing in the ring when we get back from commercials or something.

[Guest Downhome]

Did the Rock Concert get more time than the total amout of time of actual wrestling? It seemed like the Rock's 2 segments of taunting and beating of Goldberg lasted more than 30 minutes.

I don't even understand why they did that TWO times. Couldn't it have been done in one segment, just trimmed a bit? It almost seemed like it was two different things, that was meant for two seperate shows, but since Rocky couldn't be with us last week, they forced it all into one show.

 

I mean, even I could have edited quite a bit of the Rocky/Goldberg/Gillberg stuff down, and still be quite effective.

[Guest razazteca]

I was going back and forth between Raw and basketball on TNT and almost had a heart attack when I notice at around 9:40 central time they were still doing the Rock vs Goldberg concert.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I don't understand why they did the Rock concert *once*, let alone *twice*. Ooh "The Rock is Entertaining", how about you actually *do* something with it rather than completely stroke egos.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

You'd think they'd want to put some wrestling on Raw, given the fact that it's a wrestling show put out by a wrestling promotion.

 

Oh, I forgot. They don't do wrestling. They do movies.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

And they're not even movies about wrestling

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Hey, could someone check and see how much wrestling is in Ready To Rumble and compare?

[Guest AndrewTS]

This is nothing new, since JHawk does wrestling times in his recaps.

 

However, at one Raw show HHH got, out of the approximately 88 minutes of airtime without commercials, got about 25 minutes--nearly a third of the show.

 

Now they just fill that airtime with shit of a different color.

[Guest MarvinisaLunatic]

In regards to entrances, they have started to cut back on them. For instance 3MW didnt get their entrance Televised last night. So they've been doing that lately. They've also been cutting into matches with commercials more often (seemed to have started on Smackdown last summer). I kinda like this, however I hate it when they don't show what happened durring the break (probably because nothing happens but still..). I also miss when the announcers would say "If this match ends durring the break we'll show it to you" or something like that, even though 999 times out of a 1000 it never did, but it at least gave the impression that it could end during the break.

[Guest notJames]

I would hope that an average episode of S!D gets more wrestling time than RAW, if only because they have better wrestlers on the roster. And you don't have HHH spending 10 minutes to get to the ring and actually start a match.

[Guest EternallyLazy]

In other news, the sports entertainment segment (no wrestling) of the night, got a much much higher rating than the main event wrestling match

[Guest Youth N Asia]

Is it just me or were there even LESS matches in the early 1998 RAW's?

Less...but everything else on the show was better, so it was easier to deal with.

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

In other news, the sports entertainment segment (no wrestling) of the night, got a much much higher rating than the main event wrestling match

The highest rating does not always go to the best or most popular segment. In most cases of the SE crap getting high ratings, it's the "Car Crash" mentality.