10 Milestones of WWE's long road of decline

#8 Raw Moves to 3 Hours

With Raw 1000, the Monday night flagship show permanently moved to a schedule of three hours. This brought in a boon of new revenue to the company with the extra commercial time, but the additional hour unmistakably accelerated Raw's decline in quality. Three hours is, put simply, too long for a weekly wrestling program. The bloated schedule has led to the need for more filler, meaningless content, which makes it easier for viewers to tune out rather than stay invested in the show.

It was yet another short-term gain for long-term pain. Even during the heights of the Attitude Era, an extra hour would have been much. In today's scripted, starless world, that extra hour is agony. It's no coincidence that the ratings decline accelerated in the years after 2012, when that extra hour was added.

Unfortunately, there's no getting out of this one...