10 Reasons Why WWE's Problems Aren't Going Away

10. RAW Is Still Three Hours Long

Three-hour episodes of RAW don't just make full engagement impossible: the format insidiously chips away at the star aura of so many performers.

To stand a chance of getting over on the show, a talent must be a polymath. Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens did just that in 2016 by bringing so much enthusiasm and talent to it in matches and super-entertaining promo segments, in contrast to Seth Rollins in 2019, whose weaknesses as an all-round performer were badly exposed in cringe-worthy chat show segments and corny backstage deals.

The format demands most matches settle into an uninspiring, predictable routine that only serves to pad out TV time.

Given their respective positions, Andrade and Sin Cara should not have gone 10 minutes on the October 21 edition: Andrade looked less like a star by taking so long to put away an ostensible jobber, and Cara hardly got over as an emerging force precisely because meaningless, overlong matches have rendered Andrade just "a guy". It's incredibly difficult to survive the grind because, week-on-week, the must-see aura fades. The mathematics make it so.

Entire WrestleMania builds falter because of it - Becky Lynch was less of a star on the go-home show because the slog duration forced her into several holes - and the run-time just breeds rank 50/50 nothingness.

It has done for years and years.