Rant #2,311: Stuck In the Middle With You

Happy After Super Bowl Monday!

Thank goodness we are done with that game, although you know that the game will be evaluated up and down and all around for the next week or so, because people simply cannot get enough of it.

And the half time show will also be scrutinized as much or more than the game, because that is what we do. Heck, Lebron James doesn't get it, and he represents the world, so why should anyone get it?

What did my family and I do during the Big Game?

Well, I can tell you that we didn't watch it at all, and I do mean not at all.

We are not a football family, so we did other things.

My wife and I watched some movie on Netflix, nothing with nothing, I don't even remember the name of the movie, but it did keep me going for 90 minutes.

My son was on the computer, as he was during last year's Super Bowl and probably will be for next year's Super Bowl too.

But my son and I did do something different this year.

The Super Bowl half time show is a big showcase, and people look forward to it as much as they do the Big Game each year.

This year, we monitored the game leading into half time, because the WWE did something very, very novel and smart during this 20 minute or however long break it was between the halves of the most important football game of the year.

The WWE network had its own programming during this break, interrupting its own program schedule by inserting what they called "Halftime Heat," which began as the half time started and ended when the break ended.

This short show featured a six-man tag team--three wrestlers on each side--and what it specifically featured were six top wrestlers from the NXT brand of WWE, sort of an upper minor league for the WWE's main shows, Raw and Smackdown.

So, in a showcase basically being used, said WWE executive Paul Levesq--better known as Triple H, the creator of the current version of NXT--as a showcase for the future of the WWE, the top wrestlers from this brand pitted one team of three against another.

The featured wrestlers--Johnny Gargano, Tomaso Ciampa, and Adam Cole vs. Aleister Black, Velveteen Dream, and Ricochet, the good guy team which won the match--gave it their all during the short show, jumping and thumping their opponents all around the ring.

It was quick, it was fast, and it was over in a flash, but it served a purpose, or several purposes.

First, as Triple H said, it served as a showcase for the next wave of wrestlers who will eventually come up to the wrestling organization's top two shows, at least on the male side of the equation.

Second, it drew viewers away from the Super Bowl half time festivities, if for only a few minutes, as when it was over, the WWE fully expected that 99 and 9/10s of those who watched their showcase would go back to doing what they were doing before the showcase started, which means most would turn back to the Super Bowl.

The WWE Network was pretty much poo-pooed when it debuted a couple of years ago as sort of a Netflix of professional wrestling, but it now serves as a model for how what amounts as an entertainment organization can package its product for the masses on the Internet.

It features constant, 24-hour-a-day programming, it offers on-demand programming, it offers all the pay-per-views, and it offers new programs specifically designed for the network--and it has become an unmitigated success.

And yes, it is now in a position to offer such alternative programming during one of the most watched events on the annual TV calendar, and I will bet they are already looking at another such show for next year's Super Bowl half time show.

Sure, you can say what you want about professional wrestling, but it hasn't become the worldwide phenomenon that it has become without a lot of thought being given to it, and the WWE Network is certainly part of that out-of-the-box thinking that has gone into making the WWE--and all professional wrestling--the mainstream product that it is today.

My son and I have been subscribers to the WWE Network since its first hours, and the $9.99 a month we spend on it is money well spent.

I am not trying to be a commercial for the network, but what they offered viewers as an alternative to the Super Bowl half time show just shows how creative the network is and can be and will be in the future.

So congrats to the New England Patriots for another Super Bowl win, and kudos to the WWE Network for being so darn smart.