10 Rules WWE Must Follow For A New Brand Extension

9. Cut Raw Down To Two Hours

The last time WWE implemented a brand extension, the roster was huge. The company had purchased the assets of WCW and ECW and picked up the contracts of dozens of wrestlers who were previously employed by those organizations. If The Rock, The Undertaker, and Triple H were going to be on Raw and Smackdown!, undercard workers like Hurricane Helms and Tajiri could potentially be left off TV. Today, things are a bit different - the company has barely 50 full-time active wrestlers on the main roster, and splitting the number in half would make it difficult to fill a two hour show. A three-hour program would be out of the question. WWE has a commitment to the USA Network to keep Raw at three hours. USA gets paid more ad money for Raw than for other shows since it has so many viewers, so they pay WWE more money to produce more content. It's a difficult problem to solve, but perhaps the company could use the 8:00-9:00 hour to broadcast NXT.