Stephanie McMahon Talks 3-Hour RAW, Teases Her Return To TV

WWE RAW has had three-hour episodes from time to time, but soon, that will be the show’s permanent new running time. At USA’s Upfront event yesterday, WWE’s Stephanie McMahon and John Cena announced that RAW will go from two hours to three hours beginning on July 23rd, the night RAW airs their special 1000th episode.

At the event, I spoke to McMahon, asking her about the challenges in filling an entire extra hour of content on the show each week - something she told me they were excited about.

Said McMahon, “It’s going to be the first-ever regularly scheduled three-hour program on television and I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on it thus far! You know, we do a three hour show called a Pay-Per-View almost every month and Monday Night RAW, we’ve done three hours before, so we feel great about it. “

As far as changes to the show, McMahon remarked, “This is going to be the most interactive show in television history. Our audience is going to have the chance to effect something in the show every week.” As far as what the audience would be determining, she said it would be, “Matches, stipulations, anything and everything. Different things every week.”

Stephanie, who is the Executive Vice President, Creative, for WWE, used to have a notable on-camera presence on RAW, but is rarely seen on the show these days. When I asked if she might show up on RAW again anytime soon she smiled and replied, “Who knows? Maybe you’ve got to tune into the 1000th RAW on July 23rd!”

Regarding the 1000th episode, she told me, “It’s so much fun when we have an event episode, because you really get to plan around it and the creative flows and its just a lot of fresh faces and old faces. It’s great.”

As we were finishing our conversation, I couldn’t resist asking her about The Rock, who has already said he’ll be at WrestleMania next year, but not in what capacity. When I tried to find out if he might actually have a match, she replied, “Hmm, I think I’m gonna have to let that one unfold!”