Eric Bischoff joined the After 83 Weeks podcast with Christy Olson, where he discussed whether NXT should be a two-hour show or not. It is definitely plausible, as the show has continued to improve over the years and has its TakeOver events upstaging the pay-per-views from the main roster.
Here is what Bischoff said on the topic of extending the length of NXT:
“I think a lot of that depends on how much of a talent base they have. Keep in mind NXT serves two purposes. It’s a real-life, real-time, as close as you can get to primetime training opportunity and the next step.
“It’s kind of like AAA baseball or AA baseball. It’s that next step right before you get to primetime, so it has two purposes. Obviously, you want it to be as successful as a television property as it can be. But I think the real purpose of that show is really more to groom people, to get them ready for the next step [more] than anything else.”
Eric was at first reluctant to create WCW Thunder as he thought an additional two hours a week would make storylines feel less significant. Nitro went from an hour-long show to three hours, before it was cut to two hours by the time WWE bought WCW. Bischoff noted that NXT becoming two-hours long would be a good idea if WWE does not overexpose the talent
“I think if they’ve got a deep enough roster, and if there’s enough people there that need that exposure and two hours can accommodate that, then bam! Do it! Why would you even wait? But if the roster’s thin and you find yourself really tapping into that same roster of talent on a weekly basis, you may run the risk of overexposing at least some of them.”
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h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.
