No worries, WWE Raw 25 isn't going to be 5 hours of TV

No worries, WWE Raw 25 isn’t going to be 5 hours of TV

PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 09: (L-R) WWE EVP, Talent, Live Events & Creative, Paul "Triple H" Levesque, WWE Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon, WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, and WWE Superstars Mark Henry, The Miz, and Maryse Ouellet of 'WWE Monday Night Raw: 25th Anniversary' on USA speak onstage during the NBCUniversal portion of the 2018 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 9, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) /

The TCA gave all of us who love pro wrestling but would be testing it for tuning in for five hours on a Monday night a scare.

WWE knows that the people who love their brand of sports entertainment are willing to tune in for hours at a time. For the upcoming Raw 25, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the flagship show, the countless cameos and returning superstars will mean that even lapsed fans might catch the broadcast.

But five hours would be pushing it.

That’s relevant because the WWE execs and talent were promoting Raw 25 to the TCA today. That led to this tweet from the official TCA Twitter account:

This is one boss couple. @StephMcMahon and @TripleH gave us a sneak peek at January 22nd's #Raw25. Cameos and matches are still coming together, but the 5 hour event promises to be one for the history books #TCA18 (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) @wwe @wweuniverse pic.twitter.com/n7MxEGYOu8
— The TCA (@OfficialTCA) January 9, 2018

That immediately sent heads spinning. Five hours on USA? The usual three hours on USA and then two on WWE Network? Even with the likes of the Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the Dudleys, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall on the show, did it really need to be five hours long?

Alas, Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet set the record straight.

Legendary wrestling reporter Dave Meltzer also confirmed that it’ll be business as usual on TV.

The five hour Raw story on the 22nd is inaccurate. Raw will be three hours on that night.
— Dave Meltzer (@davemeltzerWON) January 10, 2018

As Satin explains, the confusion could be that Raw 25 is taking place in two locations: the Manhattan Center and the Barclays Center. Together between the two venues, there’s going to be a lot more content than on the typical Raw.

(Though interestingly, the start time on tickets at either place is listed as 7:30 p.m., so it’ll be interesting to see just how everything shakes out.)

In any case, you won’t have to say goodbye to your loved ones for half a day or start thinking up excuses for work the next day because you’re going to be up super late for Raw 25. It should be a heck of a nostalgia trip on Jan. 22, but it’s going to take place over the same three hours as any other Monday night show.

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