2 hours is not the problem. NXT is super basic with how it sets things up. Heel has match, heel wins, presumably his challenger appears and has a staredown. Or heel comes out of nowhere to beat up the face? Why? Who knows, a match gets announced for next week. NXT is focused on making match ups and not feuds. Being compared to AEW has really exposed NXT. There's really no stories going on in NXT.
It doesn't help that it feels like it's been spinning it's wheels creatively for awhile now. The women's division especially feels this way.
NXT has the same problem that Triple-A minor league baseball teams have. Your best players are going to get called up to the Big Leagues sooner or later, so you can't plan much around them.
And Smackdown's ratings may go down even further next week, as it's airing on FS1 because FOX has game 3 of the World Series that night. Many people don't have FS1 on their cable or satellite service.
As much as people get irked in this thread about Jim Cornette he voiced this issue running OVW in early/mid 2000's. That Johnny Ace would demand a guy for main roster at times before Cornette had finished long range plans with said guy. The funniest story he detailed once was the Basham brothers I believe. Cornette put over how Danny Basham (Damaja in OVW) was really great in ring and carried OVW the 1st few years before the WWF farm league deal happened.
So they signed Danny Davis nephew who also was a solid in ring guy and Cornette comically brought up how Doug Basham had a day job and finally they changed his hours to work a different shift. So after so long of the 2 as a tag team in OVW , they were working dark matches in WWF apart. Cornette tried to tell the creative guys that both were good and deserved a push repeatedly for months.
Then one day with no warning , Cornette turns it on TV and finds that Ace had Danny Basham (Damaja) shave his head bald to match Doug and they were now onscreen brothers. Meanwhile in OVW he had them feuding against each other on TV as enemies. So after cussing out Ace over his voice mail , Jim decided to have Danny (Damaja) reveal it was all a scam on WWE TV to sabotage Doug down the line . (he shot that on OVW TV).
But as Jim claimed the company would repeatedly not even tell him when guys were being pulled up and he'd have to scramble.
"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.
Here is what made Ace look good to Vince when he 1st took the job from Jim Ross in 2001/2002....
Cornette put over that Danny and Doug helped work & train the following guys who would get call ups.
John Cena
Batista
Randy Orton
Brock Lesnar
Vince likely thought , damn look at the great job Johnny Ace is doing. Not realizing it was his actual developmental that was making these guys. Cena was a damn body builder who had to learn his craft. So did Batista and Brock. But when your bringing this class of folks up early in your VP of Talent run it makes you look like a damn genius. It wasn't til late 2000's Vince realized just how bad Ace was and how he had driven off a lot of talent.
I mean when Johnny Ace cares more about Justin Credible calling himself that for shows it showed how silly he fucking was. (Now the WWE doesn't seem to care as Credible does indy shows under it)
"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.
I actually saw that particular Cornette interview and yeah, no wonder he hates Johnny Ace so much. Especially when Jim Ross tried very hard to NOT pull that stuff when he was head of talent relations.
Going back and listening to the Austin podcast with MJF. This guy's a treasure, and Austin kept it mad kayfabe lol
"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.
"The story so far: As usual, Ginger and I are engaged in our quest to find out what the hell is going on and save humanity from my nemesis, some bastard who is presumably responsible." - Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.
“ Well hell just froze over. Because CM Punk is back in the WWE.” - Jcogginsa.
“You can take the boy outta the mom’s basement, but you can’t take the mom’s basement outta the boy!” - LA Knight.
"Revel in What You Are." Bray Wyatt.