Fantasy Booking: Raw 1000
The big news from WWE is that they're expanding Raw into a 3-hour show for its 1000th episode. A special 3-hour episode is nothing new, but the deal this time is that they're making it permanent this time. This is a tricky prospect, because the last wrestling show to do three hour broadcasts was WCW Nitro, which got cancelled. It's a tall order keeping fans engaged for two hours, let alone three. Pay-Per-Views are three hours long, but they deliver better matches, or at least that's how it's supposed to work.
With the 1000th episode itself, the challenge is to put together a killer three-hour show that also demonstrates why you should tune in to see the next three-hour show and the one after that, and so on. Jim and I were discussing this, and my attitude was that they should just cram the 1000th episode with as much cool stuff as possible. That's not a sustainable strategy for a wrestling show, but for an occasion like this they really ought to make the most of the time, so people will see it and realize how much fun a three-hour show can be. By Episode 1023, Raw would probably just settle into old habits, and basically be the same show we have now, only 50% longer. But for that first three-hour show, they really need to hook people on the concept, and the only way to do that is to stuff it to the gills with content.
What got me thinking along these lines was when I read about WWE wrestlers reacting to the announcement on Twitter. Dolph Ziggler issued an open challenge for a sixty-minute Iron Man Match, and David Otunga declared that the world would now have another 3600 seconds each week to admire his physique. These are exactly the sort of things wrestlers should be talking about on Twitter. Both guys hear the show's getting longer, and they make the news all about themselves. It's great. That's the sort of enthusiasm you hope the writers and bookers have when they figure out how to fill the extra time. No one's tweeting about how great it'll be to have an extra hour of Natalya Neidhart farting or those surreal backstage "comedy" bits they use to kill time.
To get an idea of my own expectations, I went ahead and fantasy booked the July 23, 2012 edition of Raw. I doubt any of this stuff will come to pass, but it's the sort of things I think about when I imagine a wrestling show trying to go balls to the wall on free TV. It's an interesting challenge because I'm trying to put together the second best possible show I can think of, because the best possible show I can think of in this time frame would be my fantasy card for SummerSlam three weeks later.
My basic assumption for this card is that WWE's roster won't change any in the next two months, and there won't be any face-turns or heel-turns between May 23 and July 23. I cheated on that a little because Sin Cara's supposed to be coming back soon, so I'm taking it for granted he'll be back in time for episode #1000 and he won't break his leg or anything.
A. Matches
1) CM Punk (c) defeats Dolph Ziggler 10-9 in an Iron Man Match for the WWE Championship. 60:00
Basically I'm starting with Ziggler's idea, and I figured Punk had the talent and star power to get people to tune in. Jim's objection to an Iron Man Match is that they tend to do poorly in the ratings because fans tune out in the middle of the match because they know exactly when to come back for the finish. Fortunately, Punk's the kind of performer who could counteract that problem. The trick is to have him do cute crap the whole time so no one gets bored with the match. That's also why I want nineteen decisions in the match. An Iron Man Match is like a basketball game, where each side is trying to gain as big a lead as possible before time runs out. Both Punk and Dolph are perfect for this, as they'd both try to build a huge lead and wait out the clock, then get cocky and give up a few decisions just to show off. The finish might be Punk trailing by three, and he locks on the Anaconda Vice with just a few minutes to go, and now he has to force Dolph to tap out three times in a row before the buzzer.
2) David Otunga & Cody Rhodes defeat Intercontinental Champion Christian and U.S. Champion Santino Marella. 7:00
I guess Christian turned face at Over the Limit, and I thought it'd be cool to have the B-Champions team up against their rivals. At least, as far as I know the plan is for Otunga to get a U.S. title run in the near future. This would set up SummerSlam matches pretty well, and if you want to have someone else in the title hunt, they can interfere during the match or do guest commentary. Finish is Cody Rhodes dodging the Cobra and hitting Santino with the Disaster Kick, because the Disaster Kick is awesome.
3) Whoever wins the Smackdown! Money in the Bank Match vs. Whoever wins the Raw Money in the Bank Match. 5:00
I was originally thinking about a huge tag match with all the MitB participants facing off, but then I realized this Raw happens after Money in the Bank is over. So this is a better aftermath match, where the two winners go at it. I'm not giving them a lot of time because I don't know who they are, but it's a safe bet people would be interested to see this, even if it's not that good.
4) Sheamus (c) defeats Jack Swagger in a Submissions Match for the World Heavyweight Championship. 17:00
By now we're probably in the back half of the second hour, which is where I want this match. I guess the backstory would be something like Vickie Guerrero does John Laurinitis a favor, and he gives her guys title shots. Dolph makes his title shot an Iron Man match to make it as glorious as possible, and Swagger's logic is that he's got a powerful submission hold and Sheamus doesn't. So the match is just backing the champion into a corner and seeing how he gets out of it. All Sheamus has to do is whip out a new submission hold and give it an Irish-sounding name, like the Potato Famine, or the Gingerlock. Or he could just punch the crap out of Swagger until he's knocked out. Either's good.
5) Primo and Epico defeat the Usos when Mason Ryan interferes. 2:30
They've been playing up this A.W. stable for a while now, and I don't think they've actually used these guys on Raw since they got together. I assume this is the sort of thing they'd do when it's time for them to make an impact. Primo and Epico want the tag titles back, and this time they've got A.W. bodyguard Mason Ryan backing them up. Mostly I just wanted an excuse to get Mason back on Raw, because I think he's pretty cool.
6) Brodus Clay and Ryback defeat Jindar Mahal, JTG, and Tyson Kidd in a handicap tag match. 5:00
It's a typical squash match with a twist. Funkasaurus and Ryback have been destroying jobbers separatey, but if you put them in the same match together, it might spark some interest in a Funkasaurus/Ryback rivalry down the line. I doubt that's something they'd want to do anytime soon, but this match can be the starting point in the pre-match video package when they finally do get around to it.
7) Divas Champion Layla fights AJ to a no-contest when AJ freaks out and attacks the referee. Then she curls up in a fetal position and rocks back and forth, babbling to herself. 2:00
I just sort of slapped this together. I figure AJ's gimmick these days is that she's nuts and desperate for attention, and Layla's gimmick is that she may have come back from a knee injury too soon, so there's not much point in dragging this out. Of course, they could just have Beth Phoenix Squash Match #1,724 instead. I'm fast forwarding through it either way.
8) John Cena, Zack Ryder, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, Randy Orton & Sin Cara defeat Alberto Del Rio, Kane, Big Show, Tensai, Daniel Bryan & The Miz in a twelve-man elimination tag match. 20:00
And this is your third main event to wrap up the third hour of the show. My feeling was just to take the kind of multi-man tag matches they usually do for Raw main events and super-size it. The elimination stipulation keeps it interesting, and if you want to up the ante you can throw in some prize at the end, like if the good guys win then Teddy Long gets back control of his grandkids' college fund. Somewhere in the match Ricardo Rodriguez tries to cause trouble, but HORNSWOGGLE~! comes out from under the ring and bites him on the ass to help the good guys out.
Total Match Time: 1:53:30
B. Other Segments
1) Video package celebrating history of Raw. Figure maybe ten minutes of that total, spread evenly throughout the show.
2) General Manager John Laurenitis introduces one of the wrestlers from the very first episode of Raw... Damien Demento! Shawn Michaels comes out to remind everyone he was on the first episode of Raw, and superkicks Laurenitis for being a jerk.
3) Brock Lesnar murders Shawn Michaels. Maybe Laurenitis has him do it for revenge, maybe he just wants to anger Triple H, maybe Shawn was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an interview, Brock pisses all over Shawn's legacy as a performer, since he's here to "legitimize" WWE, not to dance around like a jackass in leather chaps.
4) Maybe do a pep talk backstage for the guys in the twelve-man. Two minutes, tops.
I don't know, maybe I've overfilled it. I didn't leave in time for commercials, but they could cut matches and segments pretty easily. The main thing is you've got the Iron Man, Submission Match, and the Twelve-Man, and Brock killing Shawn Michaels. That's a pretty damn strong show, I figure.
With the 1000th episode itself, the challenge is to put together a killer three-hour show that also demonstrates why you should tune in to see the next three-hour show and the one after that, and so on. Jim and I were discussing this, and my attitude was that they should just cram the 1000th episode with as much cool stuff as possible. That's not a sustainable strategy for a wrestling show, but for an occasion like this they really ought to make the most of the time, so people will see it and realize how much fun a three-hour show can be. By Episode 1023, Raw would probably just settle into old habits, and basically be the same show we have now, only 50% longer. But for that first three-hour show, they really need to hook people on the concept, and the only way to do that is to stuff it to the gills with content.
What got me thinking along these lines was when I read about WWE wrestlers reacting to the announcement on Twitter. Dolph Ziggler issued an open challenge for a sixty-minute Iron Man Match, and David Otunga declared that the world would now have another 3600 seconds each week to admire his physique. These are exactly the sort of things wrestlers should be talking about on Twitter. Both guys hear the show's getting longer, and they make the news all about themselves. It's great. That's the sort of enthusiasm you hope the writers and bookers have when they figure out how to fill the extra time. No one's tweeting about how great it'll be to have an extra hour of Natalya Neidhart farting or those surreal backstage "comedy" bits they use to kill time.
To get an idea of my own expectations, I went ahead and fantasy booked the July 23, 2012 edition of Raw. I doubt any of this stuff will come to pass, but it's the sort of things I think about when I imagine a wrestling show trying to go balls to the wall on free TV. It's an interesting challenge because I'm trying to put together the second best possible show I can think of, because the best possible show I can think of in this time frame would be my fantasy card for SummerSlam three weeks later.
My basic assumption for this card is that WWE's roster won't change any in the next two months, and there won't be any face-turns or heel-turns between May 23 and July 23. I cheated on that a little because Sin Cara's supposed to be coming back soon, so I'm taking it for granted he'll be back in time for episode #1000 and he won't break his leg or anything.
A. Matches
1) CM Punk (c) defeats Dolph Ziggler 10-9 in an Iron Man Match for the WWE Championship. 60:00
Basically I'm starting with Ziggler's idea, and I figured Punk had the talent and star power to get people to tune in. Jim's objection to an Iron Man Match is that they tend to do poorly in the ratings because fans tune out in the middle of the match because they know exactly when to come back for the finish. Fortunately, Punk's the kind of performer who could counteract that problem. The trick is to have him do cute crap the whole time so no one gets bored with the match. That's also why I want nineteen decisions in the match. An Iron Man Match is like a basketball game, where each side is trying to gain as big a lead as possible before time runs out. Both Punk and Dolph are perfect for this, as they'd both try to build a huge lead and wait out the clock, then get cocky and give up a few decisions just to show off. The finish might be Punk trailing by three, and he locks on the Anaconda Vice with just a few minutes to go, and now he has to force Dolph to tap out three times in a row before the buzzer.
2) David Otunga & Cody Rhodes defeat Intercontinental Champion Christian and U.S. Champion Santino Marella. 7:00
I guess Christian turned face at Over the Limit, and I thought it'd be cool to have the B-Champions team up against their rivals. At least, as far as I know the plan is for Otunga to get a U.S. title run in the near future. This would set up SummerSlam matches pretty well, and if you want to have someone else in the title hunt, they can interfere during the match or do guest commentary. Finish is Cody Rhodes dodging the Cobra and hitting Santino with the Disaster Kick, because the Disaster Kick is awesome.
3) Whoever wins the Smackdown! Money in the Bank Match vs. Whoever wins the Raw Money in the Bank Match. 5:00
I was originally thinking about a huge tag match with all the MitB participants facing off, but then I realized this Raw happens after Money in the Bank is over. So this is a better aftermath match, where the two winners go at it. I'm not giving them a lot of time because I don't know who they are, but it's a safe bet people would be interested to see this, even if it's not that good.
4) Sheamus (c) defeats Jack Swagger in a Submissions Match for the World Heavyweight Championship. 17:00
By now we're probably in the back half of the second hour, which is where I want this match. I guess the backstory would be something like Vickie Guerrero does John Laurinitis a favor, and he gives her guys title shots. Dolph makes his title shot an Iron Man match to make it as glorious as possible, and Swagger's logic is that he's got a powerful submission hold and Sheamus doesn't. So the match is just backing the champion into a corner and seeing how he gets out of it. All Sheamus has to do is whip out a new submission hold and give it an Irish-sounding name, like the Potato Famine, or the Gingerlock. Or he could just punch the crap out of Swagger until he's knocked out. Either's good.
5) Primo and Epico defeat the Usos when Mason Ryan interferes. 2:30
They've been playing up this A.W. stable for a while now, and I don't think they've actually used these guys on Raw since they got together. I assume this is the sort of thing they'd do when it's time for them to make an impact. Primo and Epico want the tag titles back, and this time they've got A.W. bodyguard Mason Ryan backing them up. Mostly I just wanted an excuse to get Mason back on Raw, because I think he's pretty cool.
6) Brodus Clay and Ryback defeat Jindar Mahal, JTG, and Tyson Kidd in a handicap tag match. 5:00
It's a typical squash match with a twist. Funkasaurus and Ryback have been destroying jobbers separatey, but if you put them in the same match together, it might spark some interest in a Funkasaurus/Ryback rivalry down the line. I doubt that's something they'd want to do anytime soon, but this match can be the starting point in the pre-match video package when they finally do get around to it.
7) Divas Champion Layla fights AJ to a no-contest when AJ freaks out and attacks the referee. Then she curls up in a fetal position and rocks back and forth, babbling to herself. 2:00
I just sort of slapped this together. I figure AJ's gimmick these days is that she's nuts and desperate for attention, and Layla's gimmick is that she may have come back from a knee injury too soon, so there's not much point in dragging this out. Of course, they could just have Beth Phoenix Squash Match #1,724 instead. I'm fast forwarding through it either way.
8) John Cena, Zack Ryder, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, Randy Orton & Sin Cara defeat Alberto Del Rio, Kane, Big Show, Tensai, Daniel Bryan & The Miz in a twelve-man elimination tag match. 20:00
And this is your third main event to wrap up the third hour of the show. My feeling was just to take the kind of multi-man tag matches they usually do for Raw main events and super-size it. The elimination stipulation keeps it interesting, and if you want to up the ante you can throw in some prize at the end, like if the good guys win then Teddy Long gets back control of his grandkids' college fund. Somewhere in the match Ricardo Rodriguez tries to cause trouble, but HORNSWOGGLE~! comes out from under the ring and bites him on the ass to help the good guys out.
Total Match Time: 1:53:30
B. Other Segments
1) Video package celebrating history of Raw. Figure maybe ten minutes of that total, spread evenly throughout the show.
2) General Manager John Laurenitis introduces one of the wrestlers from the very first episode of Raw... Damien Demento! Shawn Michaels comes out to remind everyone he was on the first episode of Raw, and superkicks Laurenitis for being a jerk.
3) Brock Lesnar murders Shawn Michaels. Maybe Laurenitis has him do it for revenge, maybe he just wants to anger Triple H, maybe Shawn was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an interview, Brock pisses all over Shawn's legacy as a performer, since he's here to "legitimize" WWE, not to dance around like a jackass in leather chaps.
4) Maybe do a pep talk backstage for the guys in the twelve-man. Two minutes, tops.
I don't know, maybe I've overfilled it. I didn't leave in time for commercials, but they could cut matches and segments pretty easily. The main thing is you've got the Iron Man, Submission Match, and the Twelve-Man, and Brock killing Shawn Michaels. That's a pretty damn strong show, I figure.