It’s a new year in WWE, and SmackDown is now back to being a three hour show, starting with tonight’s episode. We’ve been here many times before, and three hours is just too long for a weekly wrestling show. People who like the change to three hours will often say it means more TV time for talented wrestlers like Giulia, Motor City Machine Guns, or NXT call-ups. And while that may be true to some extent, the overall quality of the show will likely get worse, because it’s really hard to write three hours of compelling wrestling TV every single week. Keep in mind that the reason why this change is happening isn’t because WWE suddenly feels the need to showcase new talent as a top priority; it’s because USA Network is paying WWE more money to produce more content. Money is the priority here, and everything else takes a backseat.

The average ratings for three hour SmackDown will be worse than the average ratings for two hour SmackDown. This always happens, because three hours is too long for the average viewer to watch. WWE will likely try to compensate for that by giving more TV time to its current stars, the ones who are theoretically there to draw ratings. That means more filler talking segments for stars who are already regularly featured, before they wrestle later in the show. It means some of the matches these stars have that normally last two segments will now be extended to a third segment, just for the sake of killing time. It means extended entrance times, and more time spent on replays of things we just saw 30 minutes earlier. We’ve seen all of this before; the negatives of the three hour change will outweigh the positives on average, though not every single time.