Eric Bischoff Blasts WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event Format
WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff doesn’t like the pacing of Saturday Night’s Main Event.
The third edition of WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event took place in Tampa, featuring Jey Uso defending the World Heavyweight Title against Logan Paul in the main event.
John Cena attacked Jey Uso during the match, which brought out former WWE Champion Cody Rhodes for the save, and Jey retained his title. After the match, Cody issued a challenge for Money in the Bank on June 7th: Cena and Paul against Rhodes and Jey.
There were five matches during Saturday Night’s Main Event, which aired on NBC in the US and YouTube internationally. Three of the five matches had commercials during the matches, which frustrated many fans.
In today’s WWE, which airs Raw on Netflix, there are no commercials during the broadcast for fans who have the no-ads package. Usually, during Raw, the commercial breaks feature action in the ring, a promo by a wrestler, or sometimes just a wrestler walking to the ring for a match.
During SmackDown and NXT broadcasts, the shows feature picture-in-picture action, while international fans get those shows on Netflix.
Eric Bischoff Felt SNME “Pace Was Horrible”
WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff knows a thing or two about running a pro wrestling show, having served as a former WCW President. Bischoff also worked as an executive in TNA and briefly in WWE.
While speaking on his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff criticized the commercial-heavy Saturday Night’s Main Event special on NBC.
“The pace was horrible. To me it was so obvious in the very first match. Everything felt rushed. There was no ebbs and flows in it in terms of what was going on in the ring and the drama that they were trying to create.
There’s no reason for me once they made it to the ring to really invest, didn’t give me a reason. And now because of the pace and because everything felt rushed, it also felt awkward.”
There were many fans online who complained about the many commercials on the show, and Eric Bischoff seemed to agree with that sentiment.
“Those superersized commercial breaks, I mean, I wasn’t timing them because I had enough time to get up and go do something else and then come back before the show started, and I’m not exaggerating.”
Eric Bischoff went on to say if he were in charge, he’d have longer matches due to the commercial breaks. He would also have more video packages on the show to try to advance stories in front of the NBC audience.
The next WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event special will take place on July 12th in Atlanta, which is one day before the women’s only Evolution PLE, also in Atlanta.